
A . Conilensed History of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society 
of ^t Methodist Episcopal Church 






ILEEN CQUGHLIN KEELER 




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WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOaETY 
METHODIST EPISOOPAL CHURCH 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE BALANCE WHEEL 



ELLEN COUGHLIN KEELER 



A Condensed History of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church 



1880—1920 



WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 

150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 






Copyright 1920, by 

WOMAN'S HOME MISSIONARY SOQETY 
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 



OCT i 2 1920 



g)CI,A576871 



X.'^ \ 



To My Children 

Who have played Indian, Eskimo 
and Immigrant under my study 
window. 

To My Parents 

Who have cared for these Home 
Guards. 



To My Husband 

Without whose encouragement and 
help this book could not have been 
written. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE BALANCE WHEEL 11 

A Balance Wheel — How — General Condition of the Country, 
1880 — Calls to the work — Organization^ — Beginnings 

IL REMODELING THE CABIN 21 

Thayer Home —Haven Home — Mary Haven Home— Boylan 
Home— Brewster Hospital — Emerson Memorial Home — 
Simpson Memorial Home — Allen Home — Browning Home 
— Kent Home — New Jersey Home — Adeline Smith Home — 
E. L. Rust Home — Peck School of Domestic Science and 
Art — Faith Kindergarten — King Home — ^Eliza Dee Home 

III. IN MORMON STRONGHOLDS . - - - - 47 

Conditions in Utah — Mission stations and schools — Scandi- 
navian work — Davis Deaconess Home — Ogden Esther Home 
— Bingham Canyon 

IV. FROM COMMUNITY SCHOOLS TO COLLEGE - - 57 

Ritter Home — Bennett Academy — ^Dickson and Irving and 
Florence Wood Halls— Rebecca McCleskey Home — Ellen 
Augusta Nottingham primary school — Deborah McCarty 
Settlement — Sayre — Community schools — ^Ebenezer Mit- 
chell Home — Erie Home 

V. DEACONESS AND HOSPITAL WORK - - - 73 

Bureau of local work — Beginnings of deaconess work; its di- 
visions and bureaus — Distinctive features — National train- 
ing-schools : Lucy Webb Hayes, Kansas City, McCrum 
Slavonic, San Francisco, Folts, Iowa Bible School, School 
for Negro deaconesses — Conference training-schools — Dea- 
coness Homes, Rest Homes — Deaconess stations— National 
Hospitals: Brewster, Sibley, Graham, Ellen A. Burge, Tu- 
berculosis, Rapid City, Bethel, Holden, Los Angeles. 

VI. ORIENTAL ALLIES- HAWAII AN PLANTATIONS - - 99 

Early legislation— Woman's Missionary Society of the Pacific 
Coast — Woman's Home Missionary Society — Oriental Home 
— Rescue Work— Earthquake and fire — New home — Ellen 
Stark Ford Home — Jane Couch Memorial Home — Katherine 
Blaine Home — Work in Hawaii — Susannah Wesley Home 



VII. WAYSIDE STATIONS IN ALASKA - - - - 117 

Schools and Missionaries — Jesse Lee Home — Temporary clos- 
ing of the work — Hospital — Lavinia Wallace Young mission 
— Hilah Seward Home 

VIII. BORDER SCHOOLS— SPANISH AMERICAN - - - 133 

Harwood — Las Vegas — Mary J. Piatt — Frances De Pauw — 
Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement — Porto Rico: McKinley, 
Woodruff, Fisk and Williams day schools — George O. 
Robinson Orphanage 

IX. MOVING HEARTHSTONES - - - - - 143 

Early Indian w^ork — Navajoes — Apaches — Pawnees — Poncas — 
Pawhuskas— Pottawatomies^ — Nooksacks — Yumas — Diggers 
— Yakimas — Work in Government schools 

X. IMMIGRANT AND CITY WORK - - . .159 

Early conditions — Immigrant Homes: Philadelphia, New York, 
Boston — Work at Angel Island — City Settlements: Glen 
Home — Cincinnati Esther Home — Anthracite Slavonic Mis- 
sion — Hull Street Settlement — Marcy Center — Chicago 
Esther Home —Portland Settlement Center — Ep worth 
Home for Girls — Campbell Settlement 

XI. THE RESERVE ARMY - - , - - - 175 

Young People's Department — Home Guards — Mothers* Jewels 
— Children's Homes: Mother's Jewels, Watts de Peyster, 
Peek — Conference Children's Homes: Cunningham, Brad- 
ley, David and Margaret 

XII. HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS - - - - - 185 

Lenten Offering — Day of Prayer — National Organizers — Schools 
of Missions — College work 

XIII. METHODS -------- 193 

Christian stewardship — Evangelism— Membership campaigns 
— Perpetual membership — Missionary candidates — Mission- 
ary education — ^Temperance — War work — Centenary Co- 
operation — Woman *s Home Missions — Children 's Home Missions 
— General publications — Study courses— Reading circles 
— Department of supplies — Sustentation bureau 

XIV. IN REVIEW 213 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Thayer Home--1889 - _ _ - - - 33 ' 

Eliza Dee Home— 1917 - - - - - - - 33 

Tuberculosis Hospital, Albuquerque, New Mexico - - - 81 ^ 

Methodist Deaconess Hospital, Rapid City, South Dakota - - 81 

Korean Sisters from Ellen Stark Ford Home, San Francisco, Cal. - 113 



[7 



THE purpose of this book is to provide 
a short, condensed history of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church for those who 
have become members of the Society with- 
out knowledge of its remarkable past, for 
students in Home Mission Schools, and for 
those who have entered its magic circle of 
service. 

The source material for this book was 
secured from the reports of the correspond- 
ing secretEuries, and the bureau and depart- 
ment secretaries published in the annual 
reports of the Society for the last forty 
years. 



The Balance Whee 



THE BALANCE WHEEL 

•f* •}• «2« 

THE Woman's Home Missionary Society is as a balance wheel 
to the Methodist Episcopal Church. For forty years it has supplied 
its frontier preachers with food, raiment and money. It has opened up 
missions, built churches, and supported supplementary workers. Where 
the men of the Church could not enter, the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society sent its women. Wlien the Church was not ready, it advanced 
alone into the frozen North. When the Church was overwhelmed, it 
placed its rescue homes and missions in the cities. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society has been as a balance 
wheel to the nation. It has developed new industries and trades. It has 
taught temperance and patriotism. It has entered law courts, halls of 
legislation, and camps of war in its function as homemaker. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society has been as a balance 
wheel to all races of people under the Stars and Stripes. It has taught 
their boys and girls how to read and write and work and worship God. 
It has taught the Negro girl to cook, sew, make beds, sweep, and set a 
house in order; the Negro boy to plant and plow and rebuild his cabin. 
It has shown the Indian how to irrigate the land, and has coaxed him 
from a wigwam to a cottage. It has brought bright-eyed Spanish- 
American girls from adobe huts to its spacious boarding-schools. For 
forty years this potent agency of Americanization has been at work. It 
has placed Christian social settlements all the way from the Arctic town 
of Nome to El Paso, Texas, the gateway to old Mexico; hospitals and 
dispensaries from Boston to Albuquerque; Industrial Homes from San 
Juan, Porto Rico, to Tacoma, Washington. Its missions are planted 
as far west from San Francisco as Maine is east. Boats have edged 
their way along the northwestern coast laden with wood and glass and 
stone for its Industrial Homes. Freight cars have travelled from state 
to state with boxes and barrels and supplies for its orphanages, Homes 

[11] 



and schools. The genius of Christian American womanhood is recorded 
in the history of these forty years. 

General Condition of the Country, 1880 — Forty years 
ago, the condition of the United States seems to have been much 
like the chaos of today. More than a decade had passed since the 
close of the Civil War, yet the aftermath of national evils was so 
pronounced that men were alarmed for the safety of the nation. The 
aggressive institutions of the Mormons, the wrongs of the Indians, the 
fearful ignorance and degradation of people in New Mexico and the 
Southland, added to the results of sixty years of immigration from Euro^ 
pean shores, gave much ground for apprehension among philanthropists, 
statesmen and church leaders. 

Three agencies of the Methodist Episcopal Church had been doing 
splendid work in the nation — the Sunday-school Union, the Church 
Extension Society, and in the South, the Freedmen's Aid and South- 
ern Educational Society. Outside of their very specific work lay a vast 
field of Christian opportunity as yet untouched by any organization of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is but fair to say that people all 
over the land did not know of the conditions existing in sections less 
favored than their own. A sentiment was growing, however, among those 
who did know that there was pressing need of work among the destitute 
people of the South. It was felt certain by them, that as soon as Metho- 
dist women knew that millions of their sisters were wearing out weary 
lives of wretchedness in homes of poverty and sin, as soon as they realized 
that multitudes of little children were coming into these miserable homes 
to enter upon lives of vice that would be a menace to our civilization, 
they would come to their aid with prayers and consecrated giving. In 
response to the call of womanhood from the cabins of the South, the 
Mormon harems, Indian wigwams, adobe houses, tepees and Chinese 
quarters, the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church came into being. 

Three facts demonstrate the peculiar need for this Society. First, 
the Freedmen's Aid Society and other agencies of the Church interested 
in establishing missions in the West and South found their efforts weak- 
ened by conditions of want and wretchedness in the homes of the people. 
The v/ork of the schools was too limited, and the influence was not lasting 

[12] 



because too temporary. Students went back to their wretched homes, 
and were in danger of lapsing into the old ways of living. So few girls 
were able to get to the schools that boys predominated. While in school 
the boys were constantly urged to advance; they were trained in indus- 
tries, and many became teachers, physicians and preachers. But if these 
young men were obliged to "marry ignorant women and return to dis- 
orderly cabin life, too many of them would fall back mto their former 
habits and vices." This work of ministering to the home must of necessity 
be done by women. 

Second, efforts had been made to have this work done by other 
agencies of the church, but there was no organization in the Methodist 
Episcopal Church equipped to do it. 

Finally, there were only 70,000 women in the Woman's Foreign 
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (the only 
woman's organization) with a female membership in the church of one 
million. These women needed to have opened to them this privilege and 
opportunity to do the Lord's work. On one side were the wistful faces 
and outstretched hands of women in dire distress; on the other were 
women richly endowed with temporal blessings, trained minds and coura- 
geous faith, ready for the outpouring of Christian service. The need was 
reciprocal. The work was distinct and clearly defined. 

The attention of the new Society was early turned to two great points 
of contact,— Utah and the South. How deeply the conditions in Utah 
were felt to be woman's concern can be seen from the statement made 
upon the occasion of asking for appropriations to be used at Salt Lake 
City: **In view of the peril of our Christian institutions from Mormonism, 
as women we take deep interest in the overthrow of that system of 
iniquity, and considering Christian education as essential to the protection 
of people from this illusion we ask from the Church $5 ,000 to build a 
home and boarding department at Salt Lake Seminary." 

It seemed most fitting that the Society should have turned toward the 
Southland with its first gifts of healing. The condition of the freedmen 
was so pitiable. They were so destitute; they had peculiar claim on 
Christian people; it was a "land of great promise." The people lived in 
sparsely settled regions. Few towns numbered over 3,000 inhabitants. 

[13] 



There were no schools for any of them except in towns, and those did 
not accommodate any number of the Negro children. 

For some time before public sentiment had made an organization such 
as the Woman's Home Missionary Society possible, individuals moved 
by intense interest in the helpless mass of freed men and women and 
sympathy for them, made an attempt here and there to alleviate their 
misery. They sent missionaries South into the most needy localities, pay- 
ing the salaries from private purses. Among these pioneers of Home 
Missions were Mrs. J. C. Hartzell at New Orleans, working with the 
help and encouragement of the professors in the Freedmen's Aid Schools ; 
and Bishop H. C. Warren, who supported a missionary at Atlanta, 
Georgia, out of his own means. A third work established at Atlanta 
brought about a gift for **work among Freedwomen" by the mother of 
Bishop Gilbert Haven. 

At Cincinnati, Ohio, July 6, 1880, the Methodist women in that 
vicinity met and formally organized the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Mrs. R. S. Rust presiding. 
The Society received its first contribution in September, and sent out its 
first missionary in October. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society was fortunate in its begin- 
nings. There were no precedents by which its officers might be guided 
as situations arose. But far more useful to the young Society than 
precedence was the common sense, sagacity and executive ability of its 
leaders. They showed caution without fear, courage, and wonderful 
enthusiasm. They set about simply to do for women and children what 
women of all ages have been best fitted to do, — to teach home-making. 
Obstacles had to be met which would have taxed the ingenuity, patience 
and skill of the most experienced diplomat. But these good women had 
assumed the great responsibility of ministering to the womanhood of their 
own land, and they solved every difficulty with a wisdom that, in the 
light of the present, is nothing short of remarkable. 

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church had 
met Just previous to the organization of the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, and until 1 884 the Society **held its position by courtesy in the 
church and for the church but without constituted authority of the 

[14] 



church." In May, 1884, at Philadelphia, the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society received the sanction of the General Conference. It was 
given authority to prosecute its work under its original constitution with 
the same relation to other agencies of the church as the Woman's Foreign 
Missionary Society. At the time that Methodist women were organizing 
at Cincinnati, Ohio, arrangements were being made in Philadelphia, 
Penn., for an organization there. It was quite fitting therefore that the 
General Conference of 1 884, while sitting at Philadelphia, should receive 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society as one of the benevolent organi- 
zations of the church. In order to organize without the sanction of the 
General Conference, it had been necessary to| get the consent of each 
Annual Conference, before organizing therein. At the meeting of 1 882 
delegates from ten Annual Conferences were present, while over twice 
that many had been heard from and about $8,000 was pledged to the 
Society's work. The first Conference organization was in Erie Confer- 
ence at Corey, Penn. The first auxiliary organized was in St. Paul's 
Church, Delaware, Ohio. 

The financial program must necessarily be an important feature of 
the work. The managers faced a financial stringency until sufficient time 
had elapsed for the first pledges and dues to be paid into the general 
treasury. The first year, when the Society's first missionary went into 
the field, there was not money enough in the treasury to pay one month's 
salary. During this period a debt of $3,000 was incurred. It was 
liquidated before the close of the third year, when the treasury carried a 
balance of $4,919, and appropriated $3,600 for the year following. 

Very early in the work, the need of trained workers became evident, 
for no progress was possible without women with special knowledge in 
domestic science, a gift for teaching, rare tact and power for spiritual 
leadership. So, in order to provide teachers for the Homes and schools 
which the Society proposed to build, an appropriation of $3,600 was 
asked for in 1 883 to establish a missionary training school at Chicago, 111. 

Again, thousands of promising young girls had no means of attending 
the schools provided by the church. The Woman's Home Missionary 
Society offered to students an opportunity to meet a part of their expenses 
by service. Fifty dollars and often twenty-five dollars helped a girl to 
stay in school a year. Girls assisted in these ways were called **bene- 

[15] 



ficiaries." The money pledged by auxiliaries and young people's bands 
was called ^^scholarships.'* The amount of the scholarship given at each 
Home or school varied according to the locality and expenses of the 
institution. The girls helped in these ways were expected to enter into 
some phase of missionary work among their own people after they had 
completed their schooHng. 

The task before the Woman's Home Missionary Society now was 
to reach the greatest possible number of folks in the shortest possible 
time, with the least expenditure of money. In determining upon detailed 
methods of work in the Southland, it recognized the type of work which 
would be most fitting as supplemental to thef Freedmen's Aid Society 
work. The Freedmen's Aid Society had established schools all over the 
Southland and had become popular through its acceptable service to the 
Negro youth. The Woman's Home Missionary Society proposed to 
establish homes and industrial departments by the side of every Freed- 
men's Aid school as fast as time and finances would allow. There were 
two advantages in this method, — the work would be acceptable at once 
by sharing the influence and prestige of the Freedmen's Aid schools, and 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society could reach the best class of 
girls, those who through ambition and energy had reached these schools. 
In the industrial department girls were to be taught to make and repair 
clothing, to do general sewing, to cook, to do general housework, to make 
tidy, comfortable homes, so that they might become capable assistants or 
managers of homes, or enter such trades as millinery and dress-making 
and so become self-supporting. In the Homes, careful attention was to 
be given to deportment, habits of personal cleanliness and neatness. In- 
struction was also given in the economic use of money, care of the sick, 
and in the laws of health and life. Young wives and mothers were to 
be admitted to the classes. That such a course of study was necessary 
to the development of the girls can be seen! in the fact that life in the 
cabin of the freedman and in homes of the whites back in the moun- 
tains was bare of all the elevating and refining influences of a true home. 

New work was opened up for the Society by the missionary teacher. 
Such pioneers were placed in New Orleans, La. ; Chattanooga, Tenn, ; 
Atlanta, Ga. ; Nashville, Tenn. ; Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah, and 
in other places. These women studied the needs of their respective fields, 

[16] 



adopted lines of work best calculated to help the people to whom they 
would minister, and furnished the necessary data to the Society for 
reference in enlarging the work. 

The reasons for the overwhelming success of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society in launching its great work can be summed up in the 
words of its first Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. R. S. Rust: "The 
usefulness of the Society and its favor with the public has resulted largely 
from its power to arrange its methods of work so as to unite in helpful 
co-operation with other agencies in the field." 

It is interesting to note just how the men and women looked upon the 
effort to educate their daughters and revolutionize their homes. Not for 
long did the work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society depend 
for its sanction upon the prestige and recommendation of the Freedmen's 
Aid Society. As soon as these people understood what good gifts the 
women brought in their hands they coveted them as a miser does gold. 
The f reedman has not been slow in recognizing the value of opportunities. 
Instances occurred where they made brave attempts to help themselves. 
They organized themselves into auxiliaries. They raised money to edu- 
cate neglected children. They cared for the orphans and looked after 
the burial of the dead. Sorry years of enforced lack of individual 
responsibility, however, made it necessary for them to have intelhgent 
guidance. 

As for the white girls, the chance to have an education and to improve 
was the burden of many a pleading letter from isolated, lonely girls in 
the country. Money did not circulate freely among these destitute people 
and seldom, if ever, came into the hands of their children. The scholar- 
ships offered to those who entered the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
schools were a wonderful boon. Yet the girls who earned their scholar- 
ship through their daily services very often knew little about housework 
when they came. Some of them never had seen a table or sat on a chair. 
There was a twofold reason for granting student aid ; not only did it help 
the girls to get started and hold a place in school through industry, it 
was also an excellent method of helping the self-respecting students to 
help themselves. It was not the intention of the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society to pauperize any one. And the wholesome pride and 
ambition of these people was often shown by the pathetic efforts they 

[17] 



made to meet the obligations of an education. Crowded Homes were 
the rule and many a tearful girl was unwillingly refused entrance. One 
father was so determined that his daughter should **get in'* to the Home 
that he sent a double bed to take the place of a single one. Baskets of 
eggs were offered for tuition. One woman brought all she had, — a pail 
of soft soap. Another parent appeared at the beginning of the term with 
a cow which he loaned to the Home during the winter. At the end of 
the term he took the daughter and cow back home. A very formal pay- 
ment to the Society was a trust deed on a mule. The Society accepted 
the deed for the sake of courtesy and to recognize self-respect, but would 
never have foreclosed on the mortgage. 



[18] 



Remodeling the Cabin 



Industrial Homes and Schools for Negro Girls 



Name 

Thayer Home 

Haven Home 

Mary Haven Home 

Boylan 

Emerson Memorial 

Simpson 

Alien 

Browning 

Kent 

Adeline Smith 

Elizabeth L. Rust 

Peck School of Domestic 
Science and Art 

Eliza Dee 



Location 

South Atlanta, Ga. 
Savannah, Ga. 
Savannah, Ga. 
Jacksonville, Fla. 
Ocala, Fla. 
Orangeburg, S. C. 
Asheville, N. C. 
Camden, S. C. 
Greensboro, N. C. 
Little Rock, Ark. 

Holly Springs, Miss. 

New Orleans, La. 

Maishall, Texas 
Austin, Texas 



Affiliated With 

Clark University 



ClaHin University 



Bennett College 

Philander Smith 
College 

Rust College 

Nev/ Orleans College 

Wiley College 

Samuel Huston College 



[20] 



II 



REMODELING THE CABIN 

^ ^ ^ 

THAYER HOME— During the years 1879-1883, while the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society was developing into an organ- 
ization, and women were casting about for the best means of handling 
these new educational problems, articles written by Dr. E. O. Thayer 
were appearing in the church papers on the need of *' Model Homes" as 
a practical solution for training girls in domestic arts. Later, Dr. 
Thayer, as President of Clark University, Atlanta, Ga., enthused the 
teachers of the school over the possibilities of a Model Home, and it was 
decided to solicit funds and build one on the grounds at Clark University. 
The first donor of $500 was to name the building. A Mr. Fisk of 
Boston claimed this privilege, and the first Model Home became Fisk 
Cottage. 

At this point the teachers were in a quandary. The building was 
completed, but who was to furnish it and where would they get a super- 
intendent. Mrs. Rust was on a visit to Atlanta at that time. She sug- 
gested that if they would give the Home to the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society, the Society would furnish the building, secure a super- 
intendent and be responsible for her salary. This was done and the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society came into possession of its first 
property, — a '*Model Home" on the campus of a Freedmen's Aid 
Society school. At the first annual meeting of the Board of Managers, 
a letter was read from Miss Jane Bancroft, Dean of the Woman's 
College, Northwestern University, Evanston, 111., in which she offered to 
be one of forty to give $5.00 each to furnish the Cottage at Clark 
University. Eighty dollars was pledged at once. In four years the 
family became too large for the building. It was sold to the Freedmen's 
Aid Society for $500. Ground selected on another part of the campus 
was rented to the Woman's Home Missionary Society at a nominal 
charge of $ 1 . The new building was named Thayer Home in honor of 
the man who had taken such interest in this work. It is an interesting 

[21] 



fact that when Thayer was remodeled in 1 898 the Negro men from the 
Trades School of Clark University did all the work under the direction 
of a white man. By 1907 Thayer Home was so crowded that fifty 
were turned away. It still remains in use as an industrial Home of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society. 

The terms ** Model Home" and ** Industrial Home" were often used 
interchangeably, yet there was a sHght difference. The ** Model Home" 
was supposed to accommodate from ten to sixteen girls only. It was con- 
ceived to be a pretty cottage with a kitchen, dining room, bed rooms and 
parlor, tastefully and economically decorated as a model for the girls. It 
was to be in charge of a matron, who gave special instruction in cooking, 
sewing and duties of housekeeping, in the economical use of money and 
care of the sick. The ideal family was to include no more than sixteen 
girls, that number being about all that could be satisfactorily handled in 
a living demonstration of a Model Home. So many girls sought admit- 
tance that Homes were enlarged from time to time to accommodate more 
girls, and classrooms were included in the new plans, where cooking and 
Bewdng could be taught. These latter homes were, strictly speaking, the 
Industrial Homes. *'The maximum cost, in 1885, of establishing an 
Industrial Home, associated with a Freedmen's Aid school, large enough 
to accommodate sixteen girls in the family and seventy-five in classes was 
less than $4,500. The insurance, repairs, salary and traveling expenses 
of the superintendent of the Home made the annual expenses of maintain- 
ing a Home about $500." 

In the early stages of its history the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society confined itself to two kinds of work. First, the house to house 
visiting, during which the missionary taught the essentials of good home- 
making as best she could. Second, the opening of day schools for the 
neglected children who swarmed the streets. As visions of the work wid- 
ened, the Society began to place Model Homes and Industrial Depart- 
ments near each Freedmen's Aid school so far as practicable. There 
were sections of the South, however, where there were no schools of any 
kind. The missionaries reported such urgent need of schooling among 
the Negro population that the Society soon enlarged upon the idea of a 
Model Home and built Industrial Homes and day schools where there 
were no other schools. 

[22] 



Haven Home — In January, 1 882, two women were sent to Savan- 
nah, Ga., to begin work for the Woman's Home Missionary Society. 
Three thousand Negro children, for whom there were no accommodations 
in the pubHc schools, were roaming the streets of the city. The missionaries 
promptly turned teachers and opened a day school in an old dilapidated 
church, built by Bishop Gilbert Haven years before. The flimsy little 
parsonage had been mortgaged and would soon have been sold. The 
Bureau Secretary rented it as a home for the missionaries, the rent was 
applied on the mortgage and the parsonage saved. The popularity of the 
school was immediate. The older children were taught in the church, but 
the little ones had to be taken into the Home. They crowded the kitchen 
classroom, sitting under the table, behind the stove, wherever there was 
room. Reports tell us that **the Negro men and women were completely 
surprised when they heard that the Ten Commandments were from the 
Bible." They "thought only Massa and Missus said that"; had they 
known that these laws were from the Bible they would have '*behaved 
better." 

Thoughts of a Model Home for this new mission crowded the minds 
of the workers. An opportunity came to purchase a good home at 
$7,000. It was put in repair and opened in March, 1885. The new 
* 'Haven Home" was soon filled to its capacity, the first Home to be 
established outside the precincts of a church school, and a day school was 
opened; chief among the household puzzles which presented them- 
selves to the women in arranging for the * 'conduct of the home" was 
the question of maintenance of inmates. No data was to be had on which 
to base their estimates, so they finally settled upon five dollars a month 
for each person. The mothers' meeting, sewing classes, day schools and 
Sunday-schools grew splendidly. Religious teaching did much for the 
people. The earthquake of August, 1 886, thoroughly frightened them 
and they were even more eager to become Christians. 

Haven Home soon established a mission five miles away at a little 
railroad station blessed with the picturesque names of ''Sandfly" and 
"Isle of Hope." Special mention should be made of this mission, as it 
was at first financed by the teachers and pupils of Haven Home with the 
help of friends. They opened Speedwell Mission in the small log house 
of a Negro. People sat on boxes and kegs, and children on the dirt 

[23] 



floor. Then the missionaries and students built ai pretty white school 
house with trim, green blinds. There, even on Sunday afternoons, the 
house was full of men, women and children. They could not read, and 
the missionaries opened the school Sunday afternoon that they might learn 
to read the Bible. By 1891 it was quite evident that Speedwell should 
be a regular station, and the Home when built was called **Mary 
Haven Home." 

Years of increasing growth, additions to the Home, enlargement of the 
teaching staff preceded a period of disasters for Haven Home. Five 
hundred girls and four thousand day school pupils passed through the 
Home, then **fire, earthquake, storm and cyclone came as emissaries of 
Satan to destroy it, but it has stood as a monument of God's purpose to 
redeem." In 1912 it was sold to the Board of Public Education of 
Savannah. The family was removed to the Mary Haven Home at 
Speedwell until a new building could be erected on a most desirable lot 
already in the possession of the Society. The new Haven Home was 
reopened in 1917 with fifty-one students. At present the Speedwell 
property is rented by the Board of Education and used as a school house. 

The history of the Industrial Homes of the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society is an astonishing array of figures. We are amazed as we 
read of the number of girls who from therq received help, of the number 
v/ho passed through the day schools, of the amounts of money that came 
in from all over the country to build new Homes, — of heroic rallying of 
forces when disaster of fire or flood would sweep whole plants away. 
Always the building of better Homes, always students crowding the 
schools to the doors, a continual stream of supplies from East, North 
and West. Barrels of dishes, boxes of bedding for the Homes, yards 
upon yards of material for sewing classes were poured into the open 
doors of these wonderful centers of Christian light. 

This meant industry, self-denial, untiring energy, unfailing response 
from the auxiliaries. The bureau secretaries recognized this as year after 
year they took their reports to the annual meetings, and when the reports 
seemed to have a sameness to them, the good women would remind their 
colleagues that there was much to be read between the lines. The pecu- 
liar charm of their story lies in the activities of the respective Homes ; in 
their living up to the distinctive purpose for which they were founded; 

[24] 



in new departures which supplied the Society with results as valuable as 
special research would yield. 

BoYLAN Industrial Home and Training School — For the 
origin of Boylan Industrial Home, records lead us back to the work 
of a missionary in 1 885 who divided her time between teaching sewing 
classes at Cookman Institute, Jacksonville, Fla., and city missionary 
work. That she had a rare gift in winning her way is evidenced by 
her success in opening sewing classes, workers* clubs and temperance 
societies in four suburbs, Simpson Chapel, Oakland, Hansontown and 
Wrightsville. Very soon the Society recognized the need of a Home. 
A suitable house was rented and three Conferences, — Florida, New 
Hampshire and Vermont, — set to work to raise money for bedding, 
carpets and other furnishings. Mrs. Ann Boylan De Groot of Newark, 
N. J., became interested and gave $1,000 toward the purchase of the 
property which should bear her family name, saying that during dark 
days of slavery two large plantations had borne this name. She now 
desired to give it to a Home that would have for its object the uplifting 
and salvation of down-trodden humanity. Neighbors next to Boylan 
Home did not feel so kindly toward the education of the Negro. They 
erected a high board fence between the properties. This fence proved a 
protection, later, during the plague of 1888, by keeping the plague- 
ridden winds away from the Home. Though the scourge claimed vic- 
tims all around them, including the unfriendly neighbors, no one in the 
Home was sick. Some time afterwards the property on the other sid^ of 
the fence was bought for Boylan Home. 

The next few years chronicle the beginning of three activities at 
Boylan Home and school, which later gained distinction for the institu- 
tion. At the time when enlargements were asked for the Home, a new 
feature of the work was reported. A class of Negro women were taking 
special training for missionary work among their own people. The mis- 
sionary spirit expressed itself among the girls of the Home in another way. 
They adopted and supported a nine-year-old child of India named Nati 
Nomi. In 1 902 a Chinese mission was reported at the annual meeting, 
with eighteen children in Sunday-school. The Chinese held meetings in 
the recitation rooms of the school because there was no other place in 
the city for them. People called the missionary who had charge of this 

[25] 



branch of work, **The Chinese Bible Woman/' This missionary spirit 
took most effective form in Boylan Home Settlement. The students at 
the Home assisted teachers there and so were taught through practical 
work the great lesson of carrying healing and light and faith to the sin- 
sick world. This settlement commenced in Faith Cottage, at West Jack- 
sonville, three miles from Boylan Home. It was opened in a small cabin 
and an old dilapidated church near by. The girls began by house to 
house visitation. Soon they had a day school, night school, Sunday- 
school, adult Bible class, mothers' meetings and a sewing branch. That 
this settlement was very dear not only to the hearts of the Boylan family 
but to the hearts of all the workers is seen in the fact that offerings from 
twenty-one different states came to Ingraham Faith Cottage. The fairest 
estimate of the school, however, was given by one of the students when 
leaving, who said, *Tve learned more sense here than in all my life before 
and I want to come back." 

In 1 905 turpentine factories were planted in West Jacksonville, very 
near the Boylan Home Settlement. For a time these changes made day 
and night classes necessary, as well as reading rooms which could become 
a social center. But by 1910 the people had moved away and the 
settlement was closed after seven years of splendid work. 

Brewster Hospital and Nurse Training School for 
Negroes — The next vision of the family of Boylan Home was a class in 
nurse training. In two years this class was a reaHty. Great interest cen- 
tered around it. It had become a nurse training department and a medical 
mission for Negro people. When Jacksonville was visited by a great 
and terrible fire, the Home was saved, and it became a house of refuge 
during those awful days. The nurse group had an opportunity for great 
service and won praise and gratitude through their splendid response. 

In 1 902 the class in nurse training had become Brewster Memorial 
Nurse Training Department. The design of this department was not 
only to train nurses but also to relieve suffering among Negro people. In 
another year it had become officially Brewster Training School for 
Nurses, in fact the one hospital for Negroes. De Witt and Mary G. 
Hill memorial rooms were in the building. A physician interested in 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society furnished a room for patients. 
Not only did the department care for the patients received in the training 

[26] 



school, but it also did district nursing as well. In sijq years Brewster 
Memorial Nurse Training Department became Brewster Hospital and 
Training School, "a benediction to afflicted Negroes in all that part of 
the country.'* Recommendations have now been made that a new build- 
ing be erected for Brewster Hospital and a conditional building fund of 
$50,000 has been appropriated. A third fortunate move was the inaugu- 
ration of the custom to furnish girls who graduated with a teacher's 
sample outfit so that they could teach others. 

Boylan Home offered a musical training to its students, who were 
beautiful singers. The sixteenth anniversary of the Home was celebrated 
by singing at a missionary concert. Fifty-five girls took part, fifty in 
costume. At the close of the concert, a workingman said, **I tell you 
people never got so fixed up in missions before." 

Since its founding in 1 883, Boylan Home had occupied a whole 
square near the heart of the city. The location was so desirable that the 
property had increased in value, though the buildings were poor, having 
been erected originally for dwelling houses. Fire at Brewster had 
destroyed one wing of the building. It seemed an opportune time to 
make radical changes which would add to the efficiency of the institution. 
Lots were purchased in another part of the town in 1907, and three 
years later enough money was realized from the old property to build a 
fine new building, with ample school room and accommodations for one 
hundred girls. Sixty-six girls moved in at once. In 1914 the great joy 
of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in possessing such a "credi- 
table plant" was turned to dismay by the passage of a law in Florida 
that no white teacher could teach in colored schools. For a time it 
seemed as if the beautiful new building and the precious work had 
received a mortal blow. But only for a time. It was the pride of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society that many Negro girls had gone out 
from its schools trained to teach and equipped with teachers' outfits. And 
Boylan Home opened with one hundred and twenty-five students in the 
Home and a group of the best Negro teachers in the city. Soon it was 
crowded. Pupils came from all over Florida to **Boiling Home," as 
some one said. One woman, a cook, brought five girls not her own. The 
latest reports from Boylan state that ninety-eight girls are in the Home. 
On account of the exodus of Negroes from the South in the winter of 

[27] 



1917 some of the best girls left. As the result of a test case 
white teachers are now allowed at Boylan Home, as it is not supported 
by public funds. 

Emerson Memorial Home — For some years Boylan Home, at 
Jacksonville, was the only Woman's Home Missionary Society Home in 
Florida. Another was needed and should be located nearer the centre of 
the state, since the cost of traveling from one end of the state to the other 
was very great. Belleview, a town in middle Florida, one hundred miles 
south of Jacksonville, made generous offers of land, labor and a sum of 
money to the Society toward the founding of a Home there. A house was 
rented there in 1 890, and a Home established, which took in ten girls. 
This was to be Emerson Memorial Home in honor of Mrs. Cecilia Emer- 
son, the heroic woman who ** stood by" the family at Boylan Home during 
the long and trying yellow fever epidemic. During the year it became 
evident that Belleview was not a satisfactory location for the school, and 
Ocala was chosen for the site of the new Home and school soon to 
be built. 

Ocala was twelve miles from Belleview, a central point on a railroad 
line, with a large colored population. In 1 89 1 two missionary teachers 
opened work in an old church building. One side was curtained off with 
sheets and six girls slept there. The other space was used for kitchen 
and schoolroom combined. The girls were very shy and like wild pigeons. 
One had never before been in the presence of a white person for a half 
hour. One hundred and twenty-five pupils entered the day school. 

In 1902 Emerson Memorial Home was built, a plain, substantial 
building, much prized by the people at Ocala. Through a period of ten 
years this Home never presented a deficit and always had a balance, 
though small, in the treasury. It was a great factor in the development 
of the colored people, of whom it was said, **They are educating their 
children, buying homes, supporting churches and accumulating property." 

When the Home was established, Ocala expected to become the 
capital of Florida. Street railways were built and the boundaries of the 
town were enlarged. But these great expectations came to naught. The 
arrested development left Emerson Home over a mile from the centre of 
the town, a long walk over a sandy road. No modern improvements 

[28] 



were possible in that isolated place, but for a score of years Emerson 
Home inspired and equipped hundreds of girls for wholesome Christian 
living. After the splendidly equipped new Boylan Home was ready, the 
Society thought it wise to move Emerson Home from Ocala to some 
place farther South. A tract of land at Tampa, Florida, was offered 
but the Board of Trustees decided, in view of general financial conditions, 
to close Emerson Home with a view to opening it farther South later on. 

Simpson Memorial Home — Differentiations in the type of work in 
the Model Homes of the Society had taken place by 1 886. Three possi- 
bilities lay before each Home at the time of its occupation. First, that of 
evangelistic work. The department of missionary work was systematized 
and carried on in conjunction with a church or a school. This had empha- 
sis in every Home. Second, that of the day school, which could be 
in localities only where the church had no efficient school. Third, that of 
a department of domestic economy. This third possibility was often asso- 
ciated wath other schools of the church, with funds provided by them. In 
this way girls who attended school but did not live at the Home took the 
course in domestic economy at the Home and received credit as in other 
studies. Someone has said they were "trained for usefulness" while pur- 
suing their studies. Although Simpson Memorial Home at Orangeburg, 
S. C, is a thing of the past, its history is most valuable to the Society 
as an example of a domestic economy department affiliated with a 
University. 

Simpson Home was built at Claflin University, by the women of 
Philadelphia Conference as a memorial to Bishop Matthew Simpson. It 
was in all respects a Model Home, an Industrial Home, and soon had a 
department of domestic science associated with the university. It is 
interesting to note that as far back as 1888 the students at Simpson 
Home were instructed in the canning of fruits and vegetables along with 
other lessons in domestic arts. 

Large classes of girls from the University were taught various grades 
of sewing at the Home. Early the Superintendent and managers of the 
Home wrestled with a series of difficulties which had to be faced by 
every Home so affiliated with a Freedmen's Aid school. It was a matter 
of delicate adjustment to secure for the girls in the Home requisite time 
for training in the domestic department. A wild rush to wash dishes, 

[29] 



make beds and put the house in order before the school day began was 
hardly conducive to painstaking, accurate training in home science. One 
can easily understand the strain on the girls with a schedule such as many 
attempted, — the day in the schoolroom with recitation work, special 
attention to normal training in evening classes (if they were planning to 
teach), and training in domestic economy. 

In view of the fact tliat Claflin was rapidly advancing in its standing 
as a university, that new buildings were going up, that the work of the 
institution was being placed on a high grade, that the future oudined for 
it was very ambitious, the Society in 1902 decided to make radical 
changes at Simpson Home in order to keep abreast of the advancement 
at Claflin. The faculty of Claflin had been anxious for some time that 
all the girls attending the university should live there. As the Model 
Home was no longer a necessity, partitions were knocked out and three 
fine, large classrooms were finished off and used for graded sewing 
classes, with three hundred pupils enrolled. The Industrial Hall was 
equipped for cooking classes and a lecture room, — and Simpson Memo- 
rial became a well-organized department at Claflin University under the 
care of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. It was the desire of 
the Society that the Home should not supplement the work of the Freed- 
men's Aid Society by providing separate boarding facilities for girls in 
their schools, but be a department of thei university having specific work 
in the line of domestic economy. They wanted the department to hold 
the same relation to Claflin as the theological, medical, agricultural and 
manual labor schools. The courses of study offered were as follows : 

Sewing Course: Drafting, elementary sewing and millinery. 

Cooking Course: Economic study of foods, housekeeping emergen- 
cies, home nursing and invalid cookery. 

Laundr}) Course: It was voted to do away with scholarships and to 
ask for pledges of ten dollars each to provide material and appliances for 
industrial training for each girl. The results of this reconstruction were 
considered a great advance in industrial education, and everybody was 
happy. Two hundred and fifteen pupils enrolled in 1 904. The Presi- 
dent of the college said it was "a most desirable departure from old Hnes, 
being more thorough, more scientific, and taking in more girls.'* 

[30] 



In 1907 the following announcement was made at the annual meet- 
ing of the Society: **Owing to continual difficulties in administration of 
work at Simpson Home and a growing conviction that the work should 
be under the control of the faculty of Claflin University, the Board of 
Trustees of the Woman's Home Missionary Society instructed the Secre- 
tary to close the Home and dispose of the property to the best advantage." 
The site was leased ground and reverted to the University. The Society's 
building was disposed of for $600. The furnishings and equipment 
were divided between Browning and Allen Homes. Simpson Memorial 
Home became a business college, and the domestic science building a 
kitchen. 

Allen Industrial Home — To Rev. L. M. Pease and wife, 
founders of the famous Five Points Mission, New York City, is given 
the credit for the founding of Allen Home at Asheville, N. C. In 
1887 they offered to the Society a property in that town with a sub- 
stantial school building and small house, on condition that a graded 
industrial school for colored children should be conducted in which 
common English branches of study as well as religious and industrial 
training should be given. It practically meant that the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society should sustain a grammar school as well as an 
industrial school. The property was finally accepted. There were sev- 
eral reasons why Asheville was an interesting location for a Home 
missionary school. It was the **Saratoga of the South." Many visi- 
tors from all over the world came to this health-giving resort. It was 
an ideal place to demonstrate the work of the Society by supporting a 
thoroughly equipped, up-to-date! Home and school. The great numbers 
of colored people who were attracted to Asheville by opportunities for 
employment were intelligent and ambitious, offering the best type of mate- 
rial to work with. By the end of the first term two hundred and forty- 
three had enrolled in the school. The ages ranged from four to forty-five 
years. There were among them five former teachers and preachers, and 
twelve married women, two of them grandmothers. Some pupils walked 
great distances, even over mountains, to get to the school. 

The Helen Hunt Band of Delaware, Ohio, sent charts, a manikin, 
geographical maps, and a globe. It took some time to classify and 
grade a course of study to fit such a variety of ages, but there soon 

[31] 



evolved an orderly, disciplined school. To the special line of training 
called for, a course in plain sewing was added. To meet expenses and 
to develop in self-help, the older girls in the classes paid ten cents to 
enter the class; the younger girls paid five cents. After six years it was 
very evident that the work at Asheville should be enlarged. Many tour- 
ists who visited the Home received their first and possibly their only 
impression of the work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church from what they saw there. So it 
seemed strategically necessary to put that work on a broad, permanent 
basis. As the Secretary said, **We must acquit ourselves as though we 
believed that this was now our day for deep foundations." 

In 1 893 the property at Asheville was looked over with the thought 
of making statesmanlike changes. It was reported to be valuable and 
well located, consisting of two frame houses, a small cottage, and a school 
building containing a chapel, a schoolroom and rooms foij sewing and 
kindergarten classes. A well-appointed, graded public school had been 
provided in the town. In the judgment of the Committee, it was felt 
that a ''Christian institution for girls, combining industrial and literary 
advantages that would fit young women for practical home duties, wa? 
needed." The plan included a! library and industrial department, teach- 
ing in sewing, cooking and millinery for advanced classes, kindergarten 
and kitchen-garden classes for young girls. The school was to be known 
as a boarding-school for young ladies. During the year $1,000 was 
given by Mrs. Marriage Allen of London, England, a tourist who 
already, while at an Asheville sanitarium, had made numerous gifts to 
the work. Other gifts and an appropriation of $5,000 rendered the 
new Allen Industrial Home a certainty. 

As the workers and their charges entered the new Home they could 
look back upon eight years of splendid work. During that time 1 ,400 
pupils had been sent out from the school and could be found in respon- 
sible places in stores, offices, hotels and markets. The dedication serv- 
ices were held February 9, 1897. During the years following, Allen 
Home seems to have had unusual results in developing ambition among 
the girls, for many of them went out into normal schools and other 
higher schools for advanced training. 

Another step in development at Asheville was a fine, large building 

[32] 




Thayer Home, South Atlanta, Ga., 1889. The First Industrial Home 
built by the Woman's Home Missionary Society 




Eliza Dee Industrial Home, Austin, Texas, 1917 



known as the Lurandus Beach Industrial School, built in 1905, while 
across the street from the property of the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society the Negro Methodist church, Berry Temple, was built. 

The new school building was soon equipped for a domestic science 
department including a model kitchen and dining-room. A glance at 
the alumnae record of Allen Industrial School is a strong justification 
for educating the Negro. Here we find names of teachers, bookkeepers, 
kindergartners, dressmakers, laundresses, trained nurses, wives of minis- 
ters and business men, while in 1910 two graduates of the school were 
principals and five were teachers in the Negro schools of Asheville. At 
the close of each school year there was a demand for every girl, either 
as a teacher for rural schools or in private homes. One recent graduate 
was offered $75 a month to teach sanitation in the schools of an adjoining 
county. 

Civic consciousness grew steadily during the years, as over three hun- 
dred and ninety-five girls passed through the Home and over six thousand 
through the school. No greater evidence of industry and patriotism 
among colored girls and women can be seen than in the work and sewing 
classes of Allen Industrial Home and School while sewing for the Red 
Cross during the long winter of the war. 

Browning Industrial Home — Browning Industrial Home traces 
its origin to the work of Mrs. James Mather among the children of the 
recently emancipated slaves at Camden, S. C. Previous to her marriage, 
Mrs. Mather taught the children and financed the school herself, even to 
the purchase of the property required. She married a clergyman. Rev. 
James Mather, of the New England Southern Conference. About 1 884 
she interested the women of that Conference in the school of her girlhood 
days, and they raised money for an Industrial Home at Camden. The 
Home, ready by 1 889, was named for Mrs. Mather's deceased friend, 
Mrs. F. O. Browning, who had left a bequest to the work. Out of one 
hundred and twenty-nine pupils enrolled, many of the girls had never pos- 
sessed such treasures as pins, thimbles, thread, scissors, ribbons, buttons, 
needle-books and pin-cushions. One boy walked twelve miles daily to 
attend the school. 

A special feature of this institution was the plantation work. The 

[33] 



missionaries made daily trips with horse and wagon to the great planta- 
tions in the vicinity of Camden. They established schools, taught sewing 
and held evangelistic services. Iwo plantation schools at Wesley and 
Ephesus, supported by the New England and New England Southern 
Conferences, fairly transformed these communities of colored people. 
The stations became the centre of attraction for a radius of six miles 
and reached over 2,000 people with their uplifting influence. 

In 1 890 the property of Mrs. Mather at Camden was purchased for 
the school. Ten years later Mrs. Mather asked that the school be called 
Mather Academy in memory of her husband, and invested $10,000 to 
be used for the Academy when principal and interest should become 
$25,000. Repeated gifts from Mrs. Mather and her family culminated 
in the erection of a beautiful chapel. Gifts from individuals and Rock 
River Conference added greatly to the beauty and efficiency of the school. 
The latest addition to Browning, '*Hubbard Hall,'' a large and finely 
equipped school building, is the gift of an anonymous friend, and one 
of the largest gifts ever made in connection with the Homes of the 
Society. 

The general tone of the school — co-educational with three hundred 
pupils on the campus — is of the highest order. In all the years there 
has never been cause for severe discipline among those colored boys and 
girls. 

In 1901 Mrs. Mather left half of her estate to Browning Home to 
be available when it should amount to $10,000. This **fine property, 
four good buildings on a large campus, — Browning Home, Mather 
Academy, Lucy Babcock Chapel and Flubbard Hall, — constitutes the 
most complete plant with the fullest endowment of any in the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society." 

Kent Home — Kent Home, at Greensboro, N. C, adjacent to 
Bennett College, was established through the missionary energy of Troy 
Conference women. They began the initial work in 1 884, and by 1 886 
a fine building of seventeen rooms was ready, free of debt, and named 
Kent Industrial Home in honor of the deceased husband of Mrs. Anna 
Kent of Gloversville, N. Y. Every room was named for a generous 
friend. The Conference Society also paid for furnishings, bedding, linen 
and dishes. 

[34] 



The management of Kent Home was in the hands of very capable 
workers, and they were successful in molding the most unpromising char- 
acteristics into a helpful, attractive personality. The girls seemed to have 
a genius for cooking, learning it as easily as singing. But sewing was a 
bit harder. A most interesting incident in connection with Kent Home 
is recorded in 1 888. The Negroes of the town petitioned Troy Con- 
ference to send a competent dressmaker to Kent Home to teach Negro 
girls a trade and also to do dressmaking for the Negroes of the city. 
They stated as their grievance that the white seamstresses of the city would 
not teach the Negro girls the trade, and that they charged them impossible 
prices. They were quite sure that the money from the town's people and 
the tuition would pay the extra salary. The request for a sewing teacher 
and seamstress was granted, and in due time they appeared, but so fev^ 
apprentices applied that the plan was finally abandoned. 

Kent Home was destroyed by fire, that arch enemy of the Society's 
Homes. A new building was authorized in 1911, and when built con- 
tained a library room with four hundred volumes as a starting point and 
a gift of $200 for more books. The library more than fulfilled the 
expectations of friends. It was kept with the same rules as a well- 
regulated library, and supplied books to many people outside the Home. 

Save for the fire and one visitation of a contagious disease, Kent 
Home has been free from all difficulties or hindrances, and has had the 
steady, serene, hopeful development that accompanies fine, true devotion 
and loyal effort on the part of the entire family in an Industrial Home. 

New Jersey Industrial Home — A forerunner of New Jersey 
Industrial Home was a school taught by the widow of Mr. H. Stearns, 
who carried on the work of her husband. After his death in 1 869, Mrs. 
Stearns set up her little school at Morristown, Tenn. Twelve years later 
the Freedmen's Aid Society began its work at Morristown, and Mrs. 
Stearns' school was merged with it. 

In 1 887 the President of Morristown Seminary asked the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society to send an industrial teacher for the girls of 
the school. The teacher opened sewing classes in the dining hall of the 
Seminary with one hundred girls in the department. This Department 
was adopted as a protege by the New Jersey and Newark Conferences. 
They sent sewing requisites, such as scissors, charts, sewing machines, 

[35] 



chairs, tables and stove, with the plan that these appliances should ulti- 
mately be placed in the Industrial Home for which they were collecting 
money. 

The students came not only from the town and vicinity, but also from 
parts of Upper Tennessee, Southern Kentucky, West Virginia, the west- 
ern part of North Carolina and Alabama. For many years they were 
entirely beneficiaries, being extremely poor, but in 1 904 a growing ability 
on the part of the students to pay their expenses was in evidence and soon 
there were few who did not pay at least a part of their own way. They 
were very bright, capable girls, who excelled in their abilities. One girl 
wrote a hymn that received a prize awarded by the Stewart Missionary 
Foundation of Georgia in 1 898. Before the Home was provided for, 
the Freedmen's Aid Society purchased a new site for Morristown Semi- 
nary, and at that time gave the Woman's Home Missionary Society an 
acre or more of ground on which to build an Industrial Home. The 
Home was completed in 1892, enlarged four years later, and has been 
remodeled and re-equipped from time to time since. In 1909 a new 
library was welcomed. Thirty-two girls lived in the New Jersey Indus- 
trial Home in 1918. The time had come to accept the offer made by the 
Morristown Seminary to use a large room in the Freedmen's Aid Society 
school for the Industrial Department. The additional room thus afforded 
in the Home was a great help. After the survey of 1919 extensive 
repairs enlarged the building and made better work possible. 

As far back as 1 886, in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas, known 
as the West Southern states, were the Freedmen's Aid colleges, — New 
Orleans, Rust and Philander Smith. The Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, co-operating with these colleges, has exerted a powerful influ- 
ence through its Homes, — Peck, at New Orleans; Elizabeth L. Rust, 
at Holly Springs, Miss. ; and Adeline Smith, at Little Rock, Ark. The 
districts of the presiding elders of the church Were very large. In all 
that great country there was only one city of over 1 3,000, and few 
towns had more than 2,000 to 4,000 inhabitants, yet within these states 
were 2,000,000 Negroes. And out of 900,000, seventy-seven per cent, 
over ten years were illiterate. It was necessary, therefore, that the work 
should be planned for rural districts. The people were widely scattered, 
many of them being plantation workmen who lived in one-room cabins. 

[36] 



It was readily seen that the sending of a missionary to this section would 
not meet the case. She could not stay long enough. And if she could 
stay, there were inconveniences and serious obstacles to make the teaching 
impossible. The Industrial Home by the side of the college was the 
one solution. Even though the girls attended these colleges, without the 
Model Home they would return to their old life unequipped for its 
struggle. They would have neither the desire nor the skill to change the 
old modes of living. Both boys and girls came from cabins where there 
were few, if any, furnishings. The industrial teaching at the Homes, 
simple and elementary though it was, meant a sweeping change in the 
homes of the students. The girl learned to cook food, to set the table, 
to make garments and keep the house, while the boy learned, the use 
of tools and how to make a table, or seats, and to build an addition to 
his cabin. 

Adeline Smith Home — This Home was established at Little 
Rock, Ark., by a donation of $1,800 by Mrs. Philander Smith of 
Oak Park, 111. It co-operates with Philander Smith College. While 
built for the accommodation of ten or twelve girls, in four years it was 
so crowded that a new Home was contemplated. The large new build- 
ing dedicated in 1887 was also given by Mrs. Smith, and the original 
building was turned over to Philander Smith College. 

Rust Industrial Home — The Elizabeth Lownes Rust Industrial 
Home has the distinction of being named by the first President of the 
Society, Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, in honor of the Society's gifted Secre- 
tary, Mrs. Elizabeth Lownes Rust, and also of receiving Mrs. Hayes' last 
gift, a barrel which she herself packed. It is one of the group of Homes 
in the Southwest that have had much success in working out educational 
plans for that great rural section. When the girls first came to Rust Home 
many of them had never set a table or used knives and forks, nor had they 
ever sat on a chair. Although they had come to an Industrial Home, these 
Negro girls objected to working. They associated the idea of work with 
slave days and thought that because educated they would not have to 
work. It was one of the great missions of this Home to help girls value 
and appreciate the good gift of work. 

Rust Home was fortunate in having ample grounds which made cul- 
ture of flowers and shrubbery, gardening and bee-raising a valuable part 

[37] 



of their training. In one year alone the apiary produced one hundred 
pounds of honey. Cooking courses, too, were planned with regard to the 
special need of the rural maiden. They did not teach fancy cooking, 
but how to make good yeast bread, simple desserts, — the uses of oatmeal, 
cracked wheat and other inexpensive, healthful foods. They laid special 
stress on the proper cooking of vegetables, meats and food for the sick, 
also on the care and economy of supplies. It was said of one girl who 
entered the home that she did not know a tea-kettle from a rolling-pin, 
but before leaving she learned to make the best bread and prepare a good 
dinner. When girls entered the Home with neither shoes nor hats, with 
clothes tied on, having never used a needle, the sewing classes filled a 
serious need in their life. 

The original Rust Home was a small brick house with three acres 
of ground, a farm of fourteen acres and three cottages bought in 1 883. 
In 1 884 a substantial building was erected to accommodate twenty- four 
girls. It was connected with Rust University, one of the oldest in the 
South. Another building contained the sewing department with laundry 
beneath. There the girls of the Home and one hundred more from the 
university received instruction. Four thousand eight hundred dollars 
was contributed by the Slater Fund for the development of industrial 
work in the Home. History mentions as a special feature **The Old 
Sisters' Home." In 1 890 one of the cottages was fitted up as a place of 
refuge for a few old women of slave days v/ho needed help. One of the 
fine touches of the Home life at Rust was the care of these old women 
by the girls. 

The description of Rust Home in 1911 is significant in that it gives 
a typical account of the lights and shadows of these interesting 
Homes: **Situated on the campus of Rust University with beautiful 
lawn, flower-beds and majestic oaks in front; in the rear a vegetable 
garden which yielded tv/o hundred and fifty bushels of sweet potatoes in 
one year, but the house needs paint. We are proud of our laundry with 
stationary tubs, but there is not a bath tub, hospital room, guest room or 
fire-escape. The past year has been the best that the work has ever 
knov\'^n, but the home is in a sense exclusive, fifty girls having been refused 
admission on account of lack of accommodations. Three hundred dollars 
Vv^as secured some time ago to purchase a furnace, but it was not sufficient 

[38] 



and twenty-two stoves are still used to heat our Home." Having learned 
by costly experience that fires were frequent and destructive in many 
Homes of the Society, it was a great relief to the entire constituency 
when the heating plant v/as installed in Rust, said to be one of the most 
beautiful of the Industrial Homes. It was a great day v/hen lovely green 
velour rugs and a radiating plant took the place of the old rag rugs and 
twenty-two historic stoves. 

There was a motto known at Rust Home, **Even in digging a ditch 
now there is science." That this idea bore good fruit is seen in the special 
merit of the students' work. In February, 1918, the National Food 
Administration required that all women graduates should take the specific 
food administration courses of sixteen lectures. A class was organized 
at Rust. Nine completed the course and were granted Food Adminis- 
tration certificates. The district agent examined the class and promised 
the girls first choice to do demonstration work because they were so well 
prepared. She ofiered the teacher of the class $ 1 5 a month and one 
of the graduates $50 a month. 

In 1 9 1 4 a committee of four men and women was sent by the Gov- 
ernment to inspect all the Southern schools. They reached Holly Springs 
last and declared enthusiastically that Rust Home was the most homelike 
of all 

Peck School of Domestic Science and Art — The earliest 
record of the first missionary sent out by the Methodist Episcopal Church 
was that of Rev. Ebenezer Brown, appointed in 1819 to labor among 
the French at New Orleans. The first message from Mrs. J. C. Hartzell, 
pleading for the Negro women of the church, came from New Orleans. 
The first flash of inspiration came to a little group of people when they 
looked upon conditions in New Orleans and resolved to found a Woman's 
Home Missionary Society to minister to such as these. For years mis- 
sionaries had labored with Italians and French alike to lift them out of 
their sins and poverty and ignorance. From days of earliest Methodist 
history, Louisiana, the flower garden of America, had been missionary 
ground. But not till 1 889 was Peck Home for Negroes a reality. The 
ground, consisting of an entire square of three acres, was purchased in 
1887 by Mrs. Ziba Bennett of Wilkes-Barre, Penn., and the building 
erected two years later in memory of Bishop Peck was largely paid for 

[39] 



by the Central New York Conference. The Home was an Industrial 
Home and nominally was in afl&liation with New Orleans University, 
but it was located so far from the University that it was very difficult to 
carry on practical educational work there. The greater stress was laid, 
therefore, on training in the domestic arts that came within the province 
of the Home. In 1897, Peck Home was destroyed by fire. In 1899, 
the lot where it stood was sold, and a new lot in the rear of the Univer- 
sity was secured from the Freedmen's Aid Society through a permanent 
lease. The new Peck Home was begun in 1911, **after fourteen and a 
half years of longing and three and a half years of hard work and dis- 
couragements and disappointments." During the intervening years the 
University had literally taken them in. In 1903 the same conditions 
prevailed at New Orleans as at Claflin and the same changes were made. 
A school of domestic science with a sewing department was established 
and all girls, in order to graduate from the University, must pass in these 
branches. Peck School of Domestic Science was fortunate in having a 
gifted teacher in the cooking classes. It was said that one hundred and 
seven girls made the creditable and remarkable record of not burning or 
otherwise spoiling a single dish of food in the whole term. The teacher 
was called the * 'Apostle of Cleanliness." With a record of such splendid 
work behind them, Peck girls and teachers deserved the new Home which 
celebrated Opening Day in April, 1912. 

The teachers of Peck Home not only carried on their own work in 
the Domestic Science Department, but assisted in the work of the Italian 
and English churches, in the New Orleans University Sunday-school and 
the Italian Sunday-school. Pupils in the classes of the mission gave one- 
half day each week to the teaching of dietetics at Sarah Goodridge 
Hospital. In response to a call for good books, twelve hundred were 
sent to the Home. 

In 1915, through the influence of Dr. Jesse Jones of the Department 
of the Interior, Peck School of Domestic Science and Art received $200 
from the Phelps-Stokes Fund, which enabled the management to add 
home gardening, temporarily, to the industrial classes. 

Progress is the keynote to this work in the far South ; the last record 
is always the best, — one hundred and fifty girls in the day school, forty- 
five in the Home family, over 1 ,000 garments made and exhibited to 

[40] 



show the pupils' ability to sew. Yet in the background is the memory 
of the many girls who were refused entrance because of lack of room. 
To them the door was shut. 

Faith Kindergarten — A kindergarten was opened in the neigh- 
borhood of Peck Home for Negro children. It was originally an experi- 
ment, but turned out to be the best possible thing to do. Faith Kinder- 
garten developed wonderfully. A playground opened in 1911, and a 
fountain, were great helps in reaching the children. As the work pro- 
gressed older girls in Faith Kindergarten were taken twice a week for 
sewing lessons by Peck Home teachers. 

King Home — Whenever an attempt is made to impress people with 
the size of a country and the bigness of Uncle Sam's domain, comparison 
is made to the state of Texas, while the small boy is amazed to learn in 
school that the **Lone Star" state is thirty-three times the size of Massa- 
chusetts. The Woman's Home Missionary Society divided the country 
into Bureaus to facihtate its secretarial work. Texas was so large that 
the state was made a bureau by itself, yet the bureau of Texas is bigger 
than any other. 0\it of a population of 2,500,000, over 400,000 are 
Negroes. The work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society has 
been in the confines of two Negro Conferences, and its two Homes for 
Negro girls were built in what is known as the '*black belt" of Texas. 
The forerunner of the work was an Industrial Home at Harrisburg, con- 
ducted by a Mrs. Howells, which was not a part of the Bureau. It was 
the desire of that faithful worker that the work at Harrisburg be taken 
over by the Society. That proved not feasible, but work could be 
opened at Marshall, the seat of Wiley University. In fact, some money 
had already been collected for that purpose. That a home at Marshall 
was of primary importance can be seen in the fact that 250,000 Negroes 
were within a radius of one hundred miles of that city, which was a rail- 
road centre and easily accessible. Again, the only provision made by 
the Methodist Episcopal Church in Texas for higher education of the 
Negro was at Wiley University. And even though 3,000 Negro teach- 
ers were employed in the schools of the state, many of them had no indus- 
trial training and were therefore unable to train their pupils in a way that 
would improve their home life. As the secretary of the bureau said, **It 
is the accepted fact that all high standards of education for girls are futile 

[41] 



when the atmosphere of the home is the reverse of all that is truly refining." 
During the year 1 889, King Industrial Home was started with plans 
to accommodate forty girls besides teachers and superintendent, with 
industrial room, library, reception room and housekeeping suite. It was 
enclosed and plastered, but at that point work ceased, to await further 
appropriations. A building worth $6,500 had to stand idle because of 
the lack of $1,600 to complete it, while pupils gathering at Wiley 
University were in need of a home. 

The year 1 890 saw this much-needed building partly completed with 
some furnishings, both substantial and beautiful. King Industrial Home 
began its service to the community with unfinished attic, ungraded 
grounds and imperfect water system. Slowly but surely these handicaps 
w^ere removed, so by 1 89 1 all was finished. There were a variety of 
students in the Home, motherless girls, a widow and a bride of six months, 
supported by her husband, who wished her to learn how to keep house. 
The sewing and cooking classes were attended by other girls from the 
college. 

The millinery department of King Industrial Home was self-sup- 
porting from the first, and when a sewing annex was to be built in 1 904 
this department gave over forty dollars toward the building fund. The 
seniors of the Domestic Science Department taught a class in the Negro 
public school of Marshall and did so well that the superintendent of 
King Home received a letter of appreciation from the Board of 
Education. 

Several girls spent from three to six years in the Industrial Home 
and showed wonderful development, proving beyond doubt that women 
of their race were capable of advanced training. Although King Home 
had been equipped with electric lights and baths, and connected with 
city sewerage, there was much to be done. Its chief need seemed to be a 
domestic science room, but by 1912 the Society had to turn its attention 
to a more serious condition at Marshall. Like the **one boss shay," 
King Home threatened to go to pieces all over as a result of years of 
usage, since the wear and tear of the many students and classes was 
inevitable. It looked as if the school would have to close. But friends 
rallied loyally and a thorough overhauling put King Industrial Home in 
line for work once more. Friends and students rejoiced in the transfor- 

[42] 



mation and with renewed interest filled up Home and classrooms. On 
graduation day girls who a few years before had never handled a needle 
wore lovely dresses made by themselves. In recent years fine displays of 
sewing, fruit-preserving and fine hand- work have made *'King Day" at 
Marshall a function. It was at King that one of the girls claimed that 
there was only one "sinnah" among them. This Home was destroyed by 
fire, and the work is still occupying temporary quarters. 

Eliza Dee Home — In February, 1901, the Society received from 
Rev. F. Carson Moore a quitclaim deed to property at Harrisburg 
consisting of sixty acres, with a clause in the deed binding the Society 
to put $4,000 in permanent improvements before the deed was in force. 
At this time a sewing teacher, a graduate of King Home dressmaking 
department, v/as sent to the Samuel Huston College, Austin, Texas, to 
take charge of the Industrial Department. With the opening of this line 
of work at Austin thoughts of an Industrial Home for West Texas 
Conference in connection with Samuel Huston College came to the front. 

In May, 1 904, a seven-room building and three lots were purchased 
at Austin. The new Home, named Eliza Dee, was located across the 
street from the college. It was opened in October, 1904, with fifteen 
girls in the Home and one hundred and forty-eight in all classes; rooms 
were provided in the college for sewing classes. In one year it was 
crowded beyond its capacity. This same year a visit to Harrisburg, 
Texas, resulted in the property there being placed in the hands of a 
lawyer for adjustment. The location did not seem sufficiently important 
to warrant $4,000 being put on it for improvements. The donor had 
died, — it seemed better to put the money contributed for the Harrisburg 
property into the Eliza Dee Home. Then the Society had a Home in 
each of the two Texas Conferences, a much wiser arrangement, as 
Harrisburg and Marshall were in the same Conference. 

In 1909 twenty-eight girls finished different courses at Austin, and 
though splendid work was done each year, the school could not grow 
for need of room. A larger Home v/as built and the new Eliza Dee 
Home had thirty-one residents and one hundred and seventeen in domestic 
science and sewing classes the first year. The next year, 1918, outside 
improvements, including sidewalks, made the property a Model Indus- 
trial Home. A pleasing mark of appreciation of their foster-home was 
shown by the girls who worked and earned money to furnish rooms in 
the new building. 

[43] 



In Mormon Strongholds 



Ill 



IN MORMON STRONGHOLDS 

V V v 

IF a man has once; formed opinions, though based on error, he is apt 
to hold to them as strongly as if his premises had been correct. If 
he has built the structure of his life upon them, even to the regulation of 
his home and family, the chances are that he will not willingly surrender 
them or the habits of life which they have engendered. 

When the Woman's Home Missionary Society turned its face toward 
Utah with the hope to wipe out polygamy and to reconstruct the thinking, 
the homes and the practices of Mormons, it had not chosen a **royal road 
to service." No harder, no more inglorious, yet no more ambitious task 
was ever attempted by consecrated women! The people to whom they 
went believed in polygamy and the blasphemous claims of Brigham 
Young. They were convinced that the doctrine of polygany was right 
and though it might not give happiness here on earth it would secure 
that precious gift hereafter. In the South were many people in need of 
homes, — in Utah each man was busy setting up more than one hearth- 
stone for himself. The more women he could win the better he felt 
himself to be. There is nothing in Hfe more powerful, more beautiful 
and yet withal more dangerous than sex. Thesei deluded people were 
devoting God's best gift to the race to practices that would lead ultimately 
to destruction. 

The order of work in the South was missionary, industrial, educa- 
tional. Missionaries would go to the poor freed woman, teach her the 
better way, gather her children into a Hom-e, teach them industrial 
pursuits and so educate them till they were self-supporting. The plan 
had to be reversed in Utah. It became educational, missionary, industrial. 
In the South the Woman's Home Missionary Society worked as sup- 
plementary to the church. But the women realized that success in Utah 
depended upon saving the church property and standing staunch upon 
the firing line of a greater frontier. Furthermore, all the laws in the 

[47] 



universe would not open the doors of Mormon homes to the church nor 
could legislation make ''Christian Americans out of Mormon devotees." 
To the women with needle and thimble, with a propensity for finding 
out things through a neighborly chat, with ability to teach a lesson on 
all occasions, was the call given to reach the polygamous wife and mother 
who guarded her religion and her children with strict surveillance. Very 
quickly they settled upon several methods of procedure. House to house 
visiting gave them statistics as well as being the natural initial step. Their 
* 'policy of agitation" was conducted with fine acumen. They deter- 
mined to give the Christian Church at large an accurate knowledge of 
what this "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" really taught 
and what was meant by the exhortation to "live their religion." Leaflet 
literature was published containing copious and scrupulously correct 
extracts from books of this church — ^which Mormons claimed to be 
direct revelations of God! Christian America was to be aroused to 
the fact that 1 ,500 Mormon missionaries were at work in this country 
disseminating such doctrines. 

They soon saw that by exciting the opposition of the priesthood they 
began inmiediately to agitate the waters of ignorance. They became 
centers of interest. People began discussing the questions before the 
children, and a wise teacher could accomplish wonders. The opposition 
of the priesthood and unfavorable attitude of mothers brought upon the 
working corps of the Society a series of annoyances, hardships and 
obstacles which often taxed their strength and ingenuity. They led a 
life of ostracism and were unwelcome to the community because of the 
hostility of the priests. To offset the results of personal persecutions and 
Mormon prejudice, teacher and missionary had to go into the field fully 
and carefully equipped, or else they would suffer for the necessities of 
life. Not even the commonest kind of a room for a school could be 
rented. One woman had a desperate time finding an empty room to live 
in. She managed to secure a blanket but had to have her bread baked 
in a neighboring town. 

The children in the Mission School suffered persecution. The little 
Mormons would beat them and call their mothers "Methodist squaws." 
One flourishing school fell off from sixty to four as a result of a 
personal canvass by leading men of the town. During the years of such 

[48] 



work the Society was able to put into this difficult field well-trained 
workers from Lucy Webb Hayes Training School, from Kansas City, 
San Francisco, Folts Institute, and Ohio Wesleyan University. None 
did braver work than the pioneer missionaries of Utah. They went 
cheerfully into isolated places and performed the duties of every office 
of the church possible fox them to perform. 

The first auxiliary of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in 
Utah was organized at Ogden, in an effort to relieve the church and 
school at that place. Teachers were located in Mormon centers where 
school houses were provided by the Society or by the Church ErXtension 
Society of the church. They taught ten months of the year for forty 
dollars a month, the same as missionaries. 

When the Woman's Home Missionary Society first entered Utah, 
knowledge of State conditions enabled the women to plan with an eye 
to a future public school system. As there was no educational work at 
that time and as the school house was the open sesame to missionary 
influence, the Society arranged to build Lucy Webb Hayes school houses 
as fast as means would allow. These would answer for educational 
purposes and later could be used for missionary work. This also necessi- 
tated a call upon the Society for an increase of teachers from six to ten, 
to be placed as follows: two at the Scandinavian Mission; two al 
Grantsville and Spanish Fork, where the Church Extension Society had 
built chapels; one at Elsinore, Richfield, Ephraim and Cache Valley 
respectively. 

During the years, the roll of Mission Stations and Mission Schools 
stood as follows: 

Salt Lake Cit^. Spencer House, money for which was given for Scandi- 
navian work only. A school of fifty was built up. 

Ml Pleasant Thomson Mission, where the people were worshipping 
in a dance hall when the Society took hold. In 1887 a request 
to transfer the church to a local board of trustees was granted, 
as it was a policy of the Society to own no church property. Later 
the church was removed to Junction. 

Spring Cifp. Leach Home. The property here was owned by the 
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society provided the teacher. In 

[49] 



1916 they kept the kindergarten, but closed graded work and 
took up community work. Every phase of Christian work had to 
be developed here. 

Provo, The Woman's Home Missionary Society built a church for the 
Scandinavians, who were slow in taking it over. It was an educa- 
tional stronghold of the Mormon church and the missionary was a 
daughter of the first wife of a Mormon, who had been converted 
from Mormonism. 

Elsinore, Columbus Home. The school grew here, and older girls 
wishing to enter, it finally became an industrial school. 

Moroni. Gurley House. Kindergartens were established at this most 
isolated station. 

Logan, Philadelphia Conference Home. This school opened with 
eight children and had thirty-three the second day. It was situated 
opposite the Mormon temple on a lot adjacent to the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. 

Ephraim, A school in Phoebe Palmer Memorial Chapel, also schools 
at Murray and Spanish Fork. 

Richfield. The Society built a church and later deeded it to a local 
board of trustees. 

Marysville. Added to Elsinore Station. 

In 1 892 the work of the Society was no more a part of the Utah 
Mission, but by a General Conference ruling the English work of the 
church was placed under the Utah Mission and the Scandinavian mis- 
sions were placed under the Northwest Norwegian-Danish Mission. 

One of the very first appropriations asked for by the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society was $5,000 toward building a boarding house for 
the church's seminary at Salt Lake City. The boarding home was 
essential, but it is a significant fact that the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society alone was in a position to finance that important requisite for 
the school. The Home was opened in 1 883, and greatly strengthened 
the educational work at Salt Lake City. 

Tliree years later, in view of complications arising out of joint owner- 
ship of the buildings of Salt Lake Seminary, and since it was not used 

[50] 



for the purpose for which it was built, the Society was moved to settle 
the status of the ovv^nership and to provide for the work for which it 
was designed, — the helping of poor girls to a better education. The result 
was that Davis Hall was converted into an educational and Industrial 
Home for girls. 

Ten years brought a rapid change of conditions in Utah. The terri- 
tory was opened to Gentile settlers. Commerce and Christian education 
were having a wholesome effect. Polygamy was still practiced, but 
clandestinely. A public school system was well sustained. The small 
mission schools were no longer needed in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan 
and Provo. The Woman's Home Missionary Society came to a place 
where it must carry on from a different angle to meet changed conditions. 
It had worked largely among Scandinavians, a cause for anxiety among 
some members of the Society. In 1 894 request for advice as to the best 
way of applying appropriations and the conduct of the work was made 
through the missionary superintendent, the Presiding Elder and Bishop 
Merrill, all of whom were familiar with the situation. They in turn 
reported to the Committee of Education and the Committee on Woman's 
Home Missionary Society. Both committees agreed on the wisdom of a 
departure from former methods. The report read as follows: '*The 
action of the Mission Conference is to invite the co-operation of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society for the establishment of deaconess 
work at Salt Lake City; to make Davis Hall headquarters for the work; 
to employ deaconnesses and if possible one or more trained nurses, and 
to establish a kindergarten in connection with the work. One of the 
most important features should be the rescue of young girls and women 
stranded in the city." The churches of the city promised financial aid in 
deaconess work. It was expected that the nurse and kindergarten work 
would be self-supporting. In due time this plan was adopted. 

That same year the Missionary Conference decided not to open Salt 
Lake Seminary as a school, but to place Davis Hall and furnishings at 
the disposal of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. This would 
place a strong Protestant institution at Salt Lake City. Spencer Home 
was to co-operate with this work, but since it was deeded to the Society 
with a provision that it be used for Scandinavian work it could not be 
held if used otherwise. Circumstances later made it more practical for 

[51] 



the Society to rent Spencer Home and use the money to pay for a 
deaconess to work exclusively among Scandinavians. 

In 1 896 the Society had five auxiliaries in Utah, half of their dues 
going into the general treasury. They were given a regular day at 
Conference meetings and the local deaconess board was recognized by 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society as a standing committee to aid 
the Secretary of the Mormon Bureau in supervision of the work at Salt 
Lake City. Such was the strengthening of missionary work as the educa- 
tional program was passed on. There was sore need of it, too. Chil- 
dren were taught to distrust Christianity while their parents, who aposta- 
tized from Mormonism, became infidels rather than Christians. "Infi- 
delity was a ripe fruit of Mormonism." 

1899 was a great year for publicity, and the Society used its full 
strength toward rousing righteous indignation throughout the country at 
the election of the avowed polygamist, B. H. Roberts, to Congress. Of 
course, this agitation over the unseating of Roberts made the opposition 
against the Utah workers more active, but remembering that '*no man 
having put his hand to the plow looking backward is fit for the Kingdom," 
the Society kept on in spite of increasing hindrances. Reports of part 
of the work at the Mission Conference were published by local news- 
paj>ers. As already stated, a mission school was reduced from sixty to 
four. Undaunted, the makers kept the school open for the four and be- 
fore the end of the term thirty- four had returned. Meantime the Society 
got up a petition for the anti-polygamy constitutional amendment three 
hundred yards long, and sent it to Washington. 

In 1901' the Woman's Home Missionary Society had ten stations in 
Utah, with missions well located. Seven stations had good property. At 
this point they felt that libraries should be established in at least five 
mission stations in Utah, for the children had to have access to good 
books. A year later two hundred and seventy-five volumes of Bishop 
Bowman's library were given to the Bureau. Plans were made for a 
central library from which books could be sent to various stations. In 
1901 it was evident that the entire Northwest was face to face with the 
Mormon problem. Its policy was colonization. Eagerly the organiza- 
tion pushed its people into adjacent territory. In six states and territories 
it held the balance of power politically. It had an eye to possessing 

[52] 



the wealth of the country also. A committee passed on choice locations 
for colonization, — taking into account natural resources, water privileges, 
wealth of mines and rich valleys. It is evident today that the Mormons 
are a wealthy people, strong politically, and in more need of Christianity 
than ever. During the last twenty years the hope of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society, as well as of all Christian organizations, has been to 
relegate the Mormon church to the propaganda of a creed, taking away 
its power as a commercial and a political organization. Could that be 
accomplished, the vitality would soon depart from the creed. 

Davis Deaconess Home was located one-third of a block from the 
heart of the business center of Salt Lake City, and thereby had become 
very valuable as the city developed. The property was sold in 1906 
and with the proceeds the Society was able to purchase a new house on 
Fourth Street, modern, and beautifully situated, to repair the buildings 
at all the other stations but one, and to turn in a creditable sum to the 
treasury of the Society. The home is a ** Missionary Deaconess Home.'* 
Its relation to the General Society is the same as any industrial school 
or Home supported by the Society. Being in the difficult Mormon 
environment it cannot yet be supported by the local auxiliaries as other 
deaconess homes are. 

In 1913 the Society purchased O'gden Mission and Home for Work- 
ing Girls. The second part of the institution was to make a Christian 
home for self-respecting wage-earning girls and was expected to be self- 
supporting. It was located near the business section, yet in a good 
neighborhood, and was named Jesse Bowen Sterling Young Woman's 
Hall. It was comfortably furnished by friends in Ogden. The fine 
library was a memorial to Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk from the New York 
Conference. Sterling Hall became a safety zone for girls of small wage. 
In three years its capacity was taxed so that the third floor was fixed up 
for a dormitory. It continued to grow in popularity until an annex 
seemed inevitable. A new property instead was purchased at Ogden in 
1918 for Sterling Hall. The large building of the new plant was called 
Ogden Esther Home (open for Gentile girls), the smaller building 
carrying the name of Sterling Hall. The plans called for a cafeteria 
for noon lunches at moderate prices. Later, if wise, evening classes and 
clubs will be opened for resident and non-resident girls. 

[53] 



For the last ten years the plan for federation of Christian churches 
in Utah has been agitated. This led the Society to refrain from making 
elaborate repairs in buildings at the stations or from opening up new work. 
In 1918 the following stations, property of the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society, were sold to the Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church: Elsinore, Junction, 
Spring City, Moroni, Logan and Provo. Mount Pleasant also was 
disposed of. Extension work under the Deaconess Home has been taken 
up in the Italian portion of the city and at Bingham Canyon, twenty-eight 
miles from Salt Lake City. Bingham Canyon is the center of the greatest 
copper mining in the world. It has fifteen thousand people of twenty- 
nine nationalities, — a rich field for Christian Americanization. 

In taking up new work the Society can but cast an eye of pride over 
the past years in Utah. It is still a mission field and Mormon power has 
not yet been broken, but the Woman's Home Missionary Society has 
done a noble work. It built churches, schools, homes and libraries, and 
helped to establish the Scandinavian Mission. It maintained day schools, 
Sunday-schools, missionary and industrial schools for thirty years. It 
has today a strong Deaconess Institution at Salt Lake City and a success- 
ful Esther Home at Ogden, and is better equipped than ever to do great 
things for the Kingdom. 



154] 



From Community Schools To College 



White Work in the South 



Name 



Ritter 



Bennett Academy and 
Industrial Homes 

McCleskey 



Location 
Athens, Tenn. 

Mathiston, Miss. 



Boaz, Ala. 



Nottingham Primary School Boaz, Ala. 

Deborah McCarty Settlement Cedartown, Ga. 

Settlement Sayre, Ala. 

Ebenezer Mitchell Misenheimer, N. C. 

Erie Olive Hill, Ky. 



Affiliated with 

University of 
Chattanooga 



John H. Snead 
Seminary 



[56] 



IV 



FROM COMMUNITY SCHOOLS TO 

COLLEGE 

•I* ^ •*• 

IN the first Report (1884) from the Bureau for Illiterate White 
People, the description of poor white people in the single city of 
Chattanooga characterized the conditions rapidly coming about among 
those people in the cities of the South. There were four hundred children 
in this neglected class in one ward alone, and it was rapidly becoming a 
dangerous class through the hopeless state of their parents. The children 
were promising victims of a life offering only moral wreckage and all 
manner of vice. Holston Conference had a mission in this district, and 
the Methodist women in Chattanooga organized an auxiliary of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society, hoping thereby to prepare the way 
for the Society to open an industrial school in that part of the state. Two 
other groups of white girls were also in great need of educational oppor- 
tunities, — those who were rendered destitute through the war, and the 
mountain girls who were cut off by distance from schools and churches. 
Such a Home for white girls was sorely needed in many places within 
the jurisdiction of the Bureau for White People in the South. 

RiTTER Home — The first money provided through the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society for work among Southern whites was a gift 
of $1,000 from Mrs. Elizabeth Ritter, of Napoleon, Ohio, for an 
Industrial Home. Following this gift the Central Ohio Conference 
adopted this as their special work. 

There was a question in the minds of many as to the success of this 
Industrial Home among white girls, even though this sort of work had 
been so successful with the Negro race. It was feared that the girls 
who came from a land where work had been relegated to the Negro 
would not take to housework willingly. It was decided, however, that 
by careful planning, tactful and patient cultivation, the Home would 
eventually grow to satisfactory proportions. 

[57 1 



The site selected for Ritter Home was at Athens, Tenn. The wis- 
dom of this selection can be seen in the fact that it was in close proximity 
to the mountain districts of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and North 
Carolina. It was affiliated with the preparatory school for U. S. Grant 
University, and in a beautiful, healthful, attractive city. 

The Industrial Home itself was beautiful. It had twenty-seven 
sleeping rooms, parlor, library, teachers' room, dining-room, and two 
large classrooms for sewing and cooking classes, thoroughly equipped. 
The pupils were to pay six to seven dollars a month and do the house- 
work as training, under the supervision of the teachers. After a short 
period of breathless suspense during which one or two girls ventured 
timidly into the Home, Ritter Industrial Home was able to begin work 
with fourteen girls. 

*'The white girls were quite helpless in their poverty" and labor 
conditions offered no remedy. The paid service in the South was Negro 
service. The *'poor white woman" without culture or social position 
was not desirable for any position that would pay her anything, — more 
than that, she was not adapted to any. Recognizing this, every means 
was used to keep the charges in Ritter Home so low that no one would 
be shut out because of expense. After the first year, during which 
twenty-five girls entered the Home, the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society could feel that the experiment of offering industrial education to 
white girls was a striking success. In 1 893 the enrollment stood at fifty- 
one, with an attendance of thirty-six. There were fourteen daughters of 
ministers and nineteen beneficiaries. 

Ritter Home opened up a most welcome opportunity for the daughters 
of the ministers of the mountain country. In these localities the people 
were poor and the ministers were foreordained to be short o£ funds when 
they took appointments in that region. They were glad, indeed, to be 
able to place their daughters near at home in such a beautiful environ- 
ment and to have them educated by the capable teachers of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society. But there were special difficulties in this 
initial work at Athens. Although these girls came from splendid stock 
(Scotch-Irish and Huguenots) and were proud of their ancestry, brave 
and patriotic, they needed a stimulus to study. As the Bureau Secretary 
said, **They lack the heroic impulse to get an education or die which 

[58] 



the Northern child has who grows up in the atmosphere of a public school. 
Yet they realize that education is the only open door for them." Many 
pupils were adults when they entered the Home, had formed no habits 
of study, and found progress slow and difficult. The problem of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society was *'to inspire, to provide means, 
and to hold them to patient work for a term of years." By 1 895 fifty 
girls were in Ritter Home, comprising three classes: 

1 . Those able to pay the entire cost of very economic living came 
for academic advantages in the University, the tuition at Grant being 
$15 to $17 a year. 

2. Ministers' daughters able to pay their traveling expenses, tuition 
in the school, books and incidentals only. 

3. Girls of very poor families who had to be helped in every way. 
They were of good stuff, — loyal and pure. Many letters of these girls 
begging to enter the Home came to the Bureau Secretary. She character- 
ized them as a **wail of desire shot through with faint gleams of hope." 

The year 1 898 was a hard though prosperous one in the Ritter 
Home, with its seventy-two girls. The President of Grant University 
wanted all girls at the University under the care of the Home. At this 
time two bright girls of the Home graduated from Grant University. 

In 1902 arrangements were completed so that Ritter furnished the 
Home for girls and gave instruction in domestic science, sewing and 
dressmaking, and Grant University furnished academic teaching. By 
the time that seventy-four girls were in the Home, they were hard pressed 
for room and longed for a dining room and study room. The tragedy 
of refusing to take in any more girls can be appreciated, since it kept 
them from Grant University also, because Ritter had become the only 
girls' boarding home of the University. 

When Ritter Home was fifteen years old it had the remarkable 
record of having instructed nine hundred and fifteen girls, of receiving 
the previous year ninety girls and of turning away ninety-three. For eight 
years funds had been accumulating to build a wing to the building. 

The new wing (Caroline Frazer Hall), completed in 1907, con- 
tained a dining room for one hundred girls, a chapel and study hall 
combined, and sixteen bedrooms, besides halls, closets and office rooms, 

[59] 



as fine a monument to Christian women as could be found in the whole 
Southland. At the time of the building of this wing, the main building 
was overhauled. Repairs, improvements and rearrangements of rooms 
made the building complete in the fine details of a model boarding home 
for girls. That the students themselves entered into the spirit of sacrificial 
giving which blesses the work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
can be seen in their gift of the sideboard for the new dining room and in 
the raising of one hundred dollars to name a room, just as other Circles 
and auxiliaries of the Society were accustomed to do. Thirteen years 
have passed over this great school for white girls of the South since its 
enlargement. Sometimes the opening day has had to be delayed in the 
fall to await the cotton picking and pea harvesting. Financial pressure 
may affect enrollments, but Ritter Industrial Home has passed twenty- 
eight years in progressive upbuilding of character and holds a proud 
place in affiliation with the Athens branch of Chattanooga University. 

Bennett Academy and Home — In 1890 a donation was re- 
ceived by the Woman's Home Missionary Society, consisting of land and 
an unfinished frame structure at Clarkson, Miss. The Society thus had 
within its hands the possibilities of an industrial home affiliated with 
Woodlawn Academy, a Freedmen's Aid Society school. It was felt 
that the Society could not make appropriations for the Home at that time, 
but Mrs. Ziba Bennett gave for it four hundred dollars. The remarkable 
returns for that amount are worthy of note. The first story wasi finished, 
with windows and doors and partition walls, salary and expenses of a 
teacher were paid, and several girls were in the Home for a few months. 
A second four hundred dollars from Mrs. Bennett provided teacher, 
incidental expenses and furnishings, and eleven girls were taken into the 
Home. The next year, another four hundred dollars with twenty dollars 
added finished and furnished the second story, paid the teachers and 
cared for eighteen girls in the Home. In 1 894 the Society took this 
deserving enterprise under its care and appropriated eight hundred dollars 
to its support, and in 1896 it was placed under the Bureau for 
Mississippi. 

Then Woodlawn Academy, under whose shelter the little Home took 
root eight years before, and two hundred acres of land were transferred 
by the Freedmen's Aid Society to the Woman's Home Missionary 

[60] 



Society for ninety-nine years at a nominal rental of one dollar a year. 
This transfer not only gave greater responsibility to the Society, but 
increased the facilities for better education for white girls of Mississippi. 
The Woman's Home Missionary Society had now the power and author- 
ity to develop a first-class, high-grade, co-educational institution, which 
they immediately proceeded to do. They built a new Industrial Home 
for the girls, which, for that part of the country, was called ^'ps^l^itial." 
It made a great impression upon the people, with its parlor having six 
willow rockers, rag rugs on the floor, and a cabinet organ. The dining 
room was a delight, having tables set with new, white dishes. One hun- 
dred and fifteen students enrolled and they used the old Bennett Home 
for the boys' dormitory, together with Dickson Hall, the dormitory built 
under Woodlawn Academy. People approved of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society. They enlarged Dickson Hall. Then the Academy 
itself had to have larger recitation rooms, for the number of students 
jumped to two hundred and four. Dickson Hall was enlarged with the 
idea of being part of a permanent plan of a future new building. A part 
of old Bennett Home was torn down, the rest used as a manual training 
building. They turned students away. Up to 1907 the administration 
of the Home and Academy had been separate, but at this time there 
was a change, so that Bennett Home, Bennett Academy and Dickson 
Hall were under one financial head, with a president of the Academy, a 
superintendent of the Home, a matron for the Hall and five teachers. 
Success was sweet to the faithful workers as they looked upon buildings 
painted and equipped with electric lights and a new water system, with 
yielding orchards and two hundred and fifty-three students filling the 
school. Then in 1912 Dickson Hall burned to the ground and a new 
policy was decided upon. 

Intensive study of educational conditions in the state had convinced 
the leaders that the problem on hand was a rural one and that it was 
imperative that the Woman's Home Missionary Society should take the 
lead in developing the educational system in that part of Mississippi, since 
teachers were not available for the public schools and officials were unable 
to cope with the situation. The Board of Trustees decided to accept a 
proposition made by the town of Mathiston, the railroad point to which 
most of the pupils had to go enroute to Clarkson. Mathiston offered to 

[61] 



give the Woman's Home Missionary Society fifty acres of land, $5,00U 
and take the school there. It was planned to maintain a community 
settlement at Clarkson for the younger pupils. With the aggregate sum 
of $40,000 derived from insurance and other sources, from the Mathiston 
offer, and a $30,000 appropriation, the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society started to build Bennett Academy, Dickson Industrial Home for 
Girls, and Irving and Florence Wood Home for Boys at Mathiston. 
The administration building was named the Ohio Building, for the large 
gifts of Ohio women covered the cost of that entire structure. The Indus- 
trial Home filled up so rapidly that in two years they were obliged to use 
the hospital room for a dormitory and girls were turned away. How 
much was denied to those who were obliged to go away can be under- 
stood by the answers of the girls when asked where they live. One girl 
said: ''Where nothin' empties into nowheres." Another said: *'In a 
mudhole in the road." 

It has been the ambition of Bennett Academy to be a model for the 
public schools of Mississippi. The faculty has been chosen from normal 
and college graduates and the methods of teaching have been thorough 
and up-to-date in primary, intermediate and academic departments. That 
the school has gained a position of leadership is seen in the fact that 
public school people of the state visited Bennett Academy in 1916 to 
study the system which has had such excellent results there. 

Although in the last two years financial depression in the South did 
not hinder the girls going back to school, it has had a more unfortunate 
effect on the attendance of the boys. Still, the Irving and Florence Wood 
Home for Boys under Bennett Academy at Mathiston has had a very 
creditable attendance. The year 1918 saw great changes at Bennett 
Academy. Its graduates entered Maine University and the University 
of Cincinnati for household arts. Undergraduates were cultivating war 
gardens and growing sugar-cane for syrup. Under the direction of a 
former girl graduate sixteen acres of the campus were under cultivation 
and scholarship girls canned 1,100 gallons of fruits and vegetables. 
The president had gone into the country's service in a medical laboratory 
at the base hospital, Camp McArthur, Texas. Even the boys of 
Irving and Florence Wood Home had marched away, and for a time the 
halls of Wood threatened to be silent, until little boys came in to take 
their brothers' places. 

[62] 



With a great past, Bennett Academy has a great future as leader in 
education in the only state which up to 1918 has had no compulsory 
educational law. In the present dearth of public school teachers, it 
stands as the one equipped institute for training the young, who are being 
fairly pushed into its halls of learning. 

Rebecca McCleskey Home — The story of the white work in 
Alabama centers around the growth and developments of Rebecca Mc- 
Cleskey Home for white girls, at Boaz. It started with a three-room 
cottage, and a two-room school house, and one hundred and twenty-live 
pupils, the cornerstone of the first building being laid in 1 904. In 1917 
the results were an eight-room primary school building, the Ellen Augusta 
Nottingham Primary Building, a dormitory for boys connected with 
Snead Seminary, and Rebecca McCleskey Home, which cares for one 
hundred and fifty girls. Aside from this work was a development at 
two mission points, — ^Cedartown, Ga., and Sayre, Ala., — the credit for 
which belongs jointly to Lucy Webb Hayes Training School and Re- 
becca McCleskey Home. Besides a destructive fire, the usual setback of 
Homes established in country districts, the work at Boaz was done under 
difficulties peculiar to that location. It took time, ingenuity and generous 
gifts to equip the Home. There were no public facilities in the town so 
that sanitary sewerage had to be provided at an unusual expense. It was 
done on the plan recommended by the United States Government. For 
years they did not have sufficient bedding and silver. It was difficult to 
keep plumbing in repair. A steam dryer, a necessity with one hundred 
and fifty girls, was long needed, and not until 1911 did they get their 
first refrigerator, a gift from Upper Iowa Conference. In 1910 East 
Ohio Conference Society furnished a beautiful library for McCleskey as 
a silver anniversary gift in honor of its first President, Mrs. Corey. The 
fine mission furniture not only made the room lovely, but became the 
model for furniture made by students in the Home. 

The outdoor work essential to economic living included care of 
garden, cows, chickens, a horse, the hauling of fuel, boxes and baggage, 
and the plowing of corn and cotton fields. 

With a gift of $ 1 ,000 from a non-Methodist friend, twenty acres 
of land on the edge of the town, valued at $2,000, was purchased. The 
farm house on the ground was rented for forty dollars a month and the 

[63] 



Home family raised cotton on the place. The rent paid the interest on 
the remaining $1,000 and the cotton paid on the principal. As they 
became more expert in handling their property, the farm not only paid 
for itself and furnished the table of the Home, but gave employment to 
students who otherwise could not have attended school. 

In the early years of the Home a special teacher was secured for the 
many little children who came to Boaz, and 1913 saw Ellen Augusta 
Nottingham primary school on a site purchased by friends especially for 
that building, caring for sixty little children. Girls from McCleskey 
assisted for the sake of the training they thus received. It is the intention 
of the Woman's Home Missionary Society to support this school to its 
fullest capacity until such a time as public primary schools are available 
to these children. 

The new dormitory for boys in connection with John H. Snead 
Seminary was built in 1 9 1 6 and relieved McCleskey Home of the care 
of the boys and gave them a fine new home. 

The latest improvement was a domestic science room. A thorough 
course in domestic science is now offered so that students may qualify 
for teaching in the public schools, as required by the state of Alabama. 

The last report of Rebecca McCleskey Home tells of the purchase of 
a second-hand automobile which teachers and pupils use in going to 
country churches round about, where they give missionary, temperance 
and Red Cross programs as part of their *'bit" in the great world work 
of **after the war." 

At the mining town of Sayre, Ala., settlement work was done by 
students from Woman's Home Missionary Society schools. In 1910a 
Rebecca McCleskey girl, — a graduate of Lucy Webb Hayes Training 
School, — conducted day and night schools, organized a boys' club with 
short military drill, taught lessons leading to simple carpentry, and cook- 
ing and sewing classes, visited the sick, and *'even buried the dead." She 
also had a large Sunday-school. The settlement was supported by mine 
owners and teachers were provided by the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society. In 1911 the mines were closed and the pupils sent to Boaz. 
There is a possibility that this work, started so well, will be reopened soon. 

Deborah McCarty Settlement — The second settlement con- 
ducted by Boaz girls has made a most remarkable record. It is a prime 

[64] 



example of the difficulties under which the Society's initial work is often 
carried on. It also answers the question very forcibly, **Can the church 
succeed in settlement work?" Cedartown, Ga., was a cotton mill settle- 
ment. Conditions were so bad that the mills were operating on short 
time, merely to keep the five thousand people from starvation. The girls 
opened a school in an abandoned mill building in 1910. The chimney 
was unsafe and the roof leaked so badly that the building was useful only 
in fair weather. In spite of these adverse circumstances they had a large 
Sunday-school, a day and night school, and went from house to house 
teaching housekeeping and domestic science. A conditional appropriation 
was made for a building, but the building did not materialize until 1913. 
These two girls were working on the munificent joint sum of twenty dollars 
a month. Of course, they could not establish a substantial Home on 
such a meagre wage. Accounts of the manner in which these specially 
trained Christian girls were forced to exist were both heart-rending and 
accusing, and a caustic warning of the waste of the precious, finely 
wrought material which the Society had produced through years of sacri- 
fice, hard work and great expenditure of money. 

The girls had no furniture. They borrowed a bed of one of the 
neighbors and bedding was spared from the frugal supply at McCleskey. 
Besides the bed, they finally got hold of a refrigerator, a fireless cooker 
and an organ. A Cedartown merchant gave them a good kitchen range, 
but they had no dining table. The records finally report that **a dining 
table was also loaned, but alas ! by a widower, and he now contemplates 
marrying again." 

A third girl from Boaz, undaunted by the hardships that attended 
the work at Cedartown, joined the others and the work grew, along with 
money for a settlement building. 

This settlement building at Cedartown, Ga., is a splendid endorse- 
ment of the brave girls who so faithfully, under such distressing condi- 
tions, had brought the work up to such a standard for excellence. It has 
an auditorium seating one hundred and fifty, and serving as dining room 
during the week and as Sunday-school and service room on Sunday. It 
has primary and kindergarten rooms and kitchen room. Upstairs are 
the rest and living rooms of the missionaries and a fine sleeping porch. 

[65] 



School was started in the new building with one hundred children in 
the day school, twenty to thirty in the kindergarten, and night classes, 
sewing class and mothers' meetings. More teachers were needed and a 
fourth girl joined the group of workers. The basement was finished to 
relieve the congestion, but soon the whole building was overcrowded. A 
small dispensary was asked for in 1915, and the Ernest Cleveland 
Memorial Fund was started toward establishing it. Visiting nurses were 
needed and a kindergarten teacher was asked for. Child labor has been 
a problem in this mill town. 

In 1918 the cotton mills at Cedartown were enlarged. The popula- 
tion grew and demands upon the settlement school were increased. The 
school came into the limelight through its **clean-up" campaign. In 1918 
the teachers planned * 'clean-up" week. The boy who collected the most 
tin cans within the village was to have half a dollar. The second best 
would receive a quarter. The mill owners then offered a dime for every 
hundred tin cans collected within the village. To the surprise of the 
grown folks the winner of the half dollar collected 1,700 cans; two 
other boys followed closely and secured the quarter, and the total number 
of cans rounded up for the mill owners was 1 0,5 1 7. 

Community Schools — The Community Schools of North Caro- 
lina originated in the desire of the ministers of the Blue Ridge Conference 
to have an Industrial Home and school for girls in that isolated mountain 
region under their care. They would not agree on the location, however, 
so the General Secretary of the Woman's Home Missionary Society sug- 
gested that if they would select six points where there was urgent need 
for a school and be responsible for employing a teacher and for keeping 
the school open at each point for eight months in the year, the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society would pay one hundred dollars a year toward 
the salary of two hundred dollars for each teacher. That the two hun- 
dred dollars was expected to secure a teacher of superior quality can be 
seen by the qualifications asked for. She should have a teacher's certifi- 
cate from the school authorities, should be a Methodist with missionary 
spirit, must teach in the Sunday-school, help sustain the Epworth League, 
and if possible play the organ and lead in singing. These very successful 
schools were begun in 1 903 and were named Community Schools by the 
presiding elders and preachers of the Blue Ridge Conference. 

[66] 



The teachers were excellent, — but the same thing could not be said 
of the schools. The buildings were very poor. Sometimes a church was 
used, sometimes they had a room with no benches to sit on and no desks 
to write on. They were without maps, blackboards, reference books or 
other needed appliances. Poorly housed as they were, the schools were 
well attended. The people made strenuous sacrifices to gain an education ; 
the pupils walked great distances over mountain paths. Teachers, too, 
had to be strong and brave to endure the hardships of living in the crude 
homes of the mountain people. As has been pointed out, they were not 
like the comfortable Industrial Homes of the Society. 

The original number of schools provided for was six, — two in each 
Conference District. In three years these schools were an important 
factor, and it was felt that they had solved the problem of education in 
sparsely settled regions and poor neighborhoods of the Southern high- 
lands, and that fifty of such schools were none too many. 

Each year the schools were supported with a view to the possibility 
that some one point would be found to be the natural educational centre, 
where a permanent industrial school could be located. The little schools 
would then become feeders until public schools should be established. 
Where public schools were located for four months the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society teacher would teach in that school for the term, and 
then continue the school through the remaining weeks of the eight months. 

By 1908, seven hundred and twenty-five pupils were enrolled from 
the white people of Western North Carolina. One school fell by the 
wayside, leaving five, at Tereseta, Stroud Chapel, Marion, Etowah Vesta 
and Craggy respectively. In 1910, Tereseta had a separate school 
building ; the others were in churches. One year later a school house was 
put up at Marion for one hundred and twenty-five pupils, and a year later 
it was self-supporting. Two new schools were opened, one at Lansing 
and one at Marshallberg. 

Marshallberg, a coast mission school, was sustained with funds 
diverted from Marion, which became self-supporting in 1912. Traphill 
and Palestine completed the list. Just how helpless they were without 
doctors and how fatalistic they were in their attitude toward disease can 
be seen in the report of an epidemic of measles in one school. The school 

[67] 



had been closed: **Many still had measles and there were lots yet to get 
them." Many and persistent were the calls for these schools. And for 
the small outlay they produced an inestimable amount of good, but 
changes came and at present there are no Community Schools under the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society. 

Ebenezer Mitchell Home — Ebenezer Mitchell Home was first 
located away out in the woods of North Carolina, six miles from Lenoir, 
at Cedar Valley. It was also four miles from the railroad station of 
Hudson, six miles from the post-office and one-half mile from the high- 
way. Into this loneliness and isolation the missionaries of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society carried their message of Christian love and 
healthful living. 

The school is said to have been founded in 1 885 by a gift of property 
to the Society. It consisted of a school building, a home and thirty acres 
of land. In 1901 a Mrs. Mitchell, of Dayton, Ohio, gave $1,000 
toward the Home and named it after her son. In 1904 a church was 
organized in the neighborhood with forty members, and the work of Home 
and school was well under way. Fire early threatened, the forest fires 
of 1906 coming so near that trees on the property of the Home were 
scorched. The quiet place became a beehive in the next two summers. 
A saw-mill was running all day long cutting up the fire-scorched trees. 
The mountain spring was curbed. The spring gave out and a well had 
to be dug. The cornfield was cleared of rocks, and the rocks used to fill 
in the foundation of the Cottage. 

A second fire in 1908 destroyed Mitchell Home. Thirty-five stu- 
dents and two teachers were turned out in their night clothes. The near- 
est neighbors were a mile away through trackless woods. They took shel- 
ter in the little school house that stood untouched near by. In the morning 
kind friends at Lenoir took them in. 

Mitchell Home was then moved to Meisenheimer, N. C, near Salis- 
bury, — the centre of the state, — with railroad facilities. TTie railroad 
company moved their freight free of charge and brought them a carload 
of coal from Tennessee. The Home was welcomed at Meisenheimer and 
the people rejoiced in the work which the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society was doing, and promised to help in every way. Then Mitchell 
Home grew until a boys' dormitory was built in 1913. The school 

[68] 



work was graded from primary to high school grade. Special effort was 
made to secure excellent teachers. 

In 1915 fire once more came to Mitchell Home. The main building, 
with supplies and equipment, was destroyed. The teachers nobly pulled 
the school together and in a short time school work was resumed, but only 
eight students could be cared for in the Home. Students went to college 
and became ministers and leaders in spite of the material handicaps that 
Mitchell had suffered. 

In I 9 1 6 an annex was built to the building untouched by fire, so that 
the work could be made reasonably efficient until the time should come 
to build a new building. 

Student government was established at Mitchell in 1917, and a year 
later the Home school was living in the great war. It had nineteen stars 
on its service flag, while the girls helped in Red Cross work. 

Olive Hill — In 1911 the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
voted to open work in Kentucky simultaneously at Harlan and Olive Hill. 
The citizens of Harlan gave lots valued at $4,500 as a site for a school 
building. This was a small mountain town in the southeastern part of the 
state on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Erie Conference pledged 
$2,000 for the Home, and with gifts amounting to $1,000, the Society 
purchased a house on lots adjoining those given for the school house. 
Work began with the opening of a kindergarten. Twelve girls were in 
the Home during 1913, and others wanted to enter, but there was no 
room. Cooking and sewing classes were organized and a school building 
was rented until the new Aiken Hall could be built. In 1914 it was 
decided that Harlan belonged to a sister church as a field of work, 
and so the work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society was cen- 
tered at Olive Hill. Erie Home at Harlan was sold and the proceeds 
invested in an Industrial Home for Olive Hill. The name was trans- 
ferred to the new Home, as well as the names on rooms, doors and 
windows. 

Olive Hill is located in Northeast Kentucky on the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railroad. The property, a picturesque site of six acres, was 
donated by a citizen and more ground was promised by others. The 
Fire Brick Company promised to donate brick for a $1,500 school 

[69] 



building and to provide a heating and lighting plant. The Woman's 
Home Missionary Society was to furnish the building and maintain the 
school. Such a building would require $2,000 to furnish and equip it. 
The breaking of ground for the building was a great occasion and a 
day of celebration by the citizens of Olive Hill. Donations came in, 
too. A gentleman from Ohio donated the roof for the building. An 
old man known as * 'Grandfather Thomas,'* who could neither read nor 
write, gave a hundred dollars for the school, saying that he wanted his 
grandchildren to learn to read and write. School opened with sixty 
kindergarten children and a primary grade in the classroom of the Metho- 
dist Church. During the year a house was placed at the Society's 
disposal by interested friends in Olive Hill. 

Aiken Hall was finished in the latter' months of 1914, the dormitory 
accommodating one hundred girls. Thus Olive Hill was equipped with 
two splendid training plants, Erie Home and Aiken Hall. The day 
school soon reached one hundred enrollment, while sewing and cooking 
classes did a fine work. In 1917, Erie Home was remodeled so that it 
might conform more nearly to a Mode! Home. 

In 1918 small-pox broke out in town and the teachers had a serious 
time caring for the arms of little children who had been vaccinated, and 
even more serious times with parents who were opposed to vaccination. 
All the girls in the school became Red Cross members. 

In spite of difficulties which the last two years have laid upon schools 
everywhere, the school and Home at Olive Hill, Kentucky, has grown in 
size, has made progress and shows excellent results. 



[70] 



Deaconess and Hospital Work 



Deaconess and Hospital Work 



Name 
Lucy Webb Hayes National Training-School 
Kansas City National Training-School 
McCrum Slavonic National Training-School 
San Francisco National Training-School 
Folts Institute 
Iowa Bible School 

Training School for Negro Deaconesses 
Sibley Hospital 
Graham Protestant Hospital 
Ellen A. Burge Deaconess Hospital 
Tuberculosis Hospital 
Deaconess Hospital 
Holden Hospital 
Methodist Deaconess Hospital 
Methodist Hospital 
Methodist Deaconess Hospital 
Brewster Hospital 
Beth-el Hospital 



Location 

Washington, D. C. 
Kansas City, Mo. 
Uniontown, Penn. 
San Francisco, Cal. 
Herkimer, N. Y. 
Des Moines, Iowa 

Washington, D. C. 
Keokuk, Iowa 
Springfield, Mo. 
Albuquerque, N. Mex. 
Rapid City, S. Dak. 
Carbondale, 111. 
Indianapolis, Ind. 
Los Angeles, Cal. 
Rapid City, S. Dak. 
Jacksonville, Fla. 
Colorado Springs, Col. 



[72] 



V 



DEACONESS AND HOSPITAL WORK 

•I* v •Sc* 

THE Bureau of Local Work in the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society had an existence of fourteen years, between 1 885 and 1 899. 
The very first evidence of a need for home missionary work was in the 
crowded slums of the nation's cities, where thousands of ignorant, poor 
people were struggling for a precarious existence, living in abominable 
tenements, unclean, neglected, unventilated, and yielding thereby lives 
degraded and maimed with ftlth, disease and vice. Very early, earnest 
workers took up the task of city mission work in New Orleans in the 
French and Italian quarters of the city. From that time until today the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society has carried on a royal battle with 
the emissaries of sin in many of the great cities of the land. During the 
incumbency of the Bureau of Local Work, the duty laid upon it was to 
encourage the employment of city missionaries and so create interest in 
local auxiliaries that these auxiliaries would make an active, personal 
effort to reach non-Christian people near at hand. The money for this 
work was to be raised by special funds and under no circumstances was 
it to be taken from the general treasury. The financial expenditure was 
to be reported by voucher and credit received for it as for cash. 

In 1 899 the Bureau of Local Work had fulfilled its mission and its 
work was dissolved into that of the Deaconess Bureau. It had not only 
paved the way for the introduction of deaconess work in the church but 
during the early years, when sporadic and irregular enterprises were crys- 
tahzing into w^ell-defined *'city missions," ''Industrial Homes," and dea- 
coness Homes," it had also unconsciously evolved the workers. Along 
with this providential leading of the forces toward the great movement 
was the conscious planning of the leaders for the new phase of work. 

In 1886, Miss Jane Bancroft, Dean of the Woman's College of 
Northwestern University, went to Europe for two years to study * 'social 
ethics ajid methods employed by various humanitarian and evangelical 

,. [73] 



societies for the uplift of neglected classes." She saw the Deaconess 
movement in Germany, England, Switzerland and France, and wrote 
about it to Mrs. Rust. Mrs. Rust directed Miss Bancroft to make a 
thorough study of the deaconess movement abroad so as to be ready to 
lead the Woman's Home Missionary Society along those lines on her 
return. Miss Bancroft returned to America in 1 888. The time was 
propitious for the presentation of the subject. The work of local women 
had tempered the minds of auxiliaries throughout the Society. Bishop 
Thoburn had urged this method of mission work before the East Ohio 
Conference. In 1887 a memorial from Rock River Conference had 
been prepared for General Conference on this subject and in 1 888 
General Conference legislation had provided for the office of deaconess. 
Nine young women of the Chicago Training School announced them- 
selves as ready for this specific service. 

The program of the Annual Meeting of the Society at Boston, 
October, 1888, featured deaconess work. Both the Secretary, Mrs. 
Paist, and Miss Bancroft urged the special attention of the women of the 
church to the need of this work. Mrs. Rust reported the duties of the 
office of deaconess, as defined by General Conference, to be **to minister 
to the poor, visit the sick, pray for the dying, care for the orphans, seek 
the wandering, comfort the sorrowing, save the sinning, and relinquish- 
ing wholly all other pursuits to devote themselves in a general way to 
such form of Christian labor as may be suited to their abilities." The 
disciplinary regulation for the work of deaconess provided also that **the 
women who are employed within any Conference shall be under the care 
of a committee, of whom one-third at least are to be women." The first 
contribution to deaconess work under the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society was one hundred dollars made by Capt. Thomas of Boston at 
the close of Miss Bancroft's address to the convention. The Society 
appointed a Committee on Deaconess Work with Miss Jane Bancroft 
as chairman. 

The whole history of the deaconess work in the Society is that of an 
evolution. There were no precedents to go by, but the v/omen had great 
faith. Miss Bancroft devoted herself to the work, speaking at conven- 
tions and auxiliaries, and helping to establish Deaconess Homes where- 
ever there was an opening. After the appointment of a committee on 

[74] 



Deaconess Work, the first plea was made in New York City, the second 
in Philadelphia, where the Philadelphia Conference turned over the con- 
sideration of the work to the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the 
Conference, and the third at Baltimore, where a committee was appointed 
to work with the Woman's Home Missionary Society in that city. 

In 1 889 the Committee on Deaconess Work was established as a 
Bureau and the Woman's Home Missionary Society passed the famous 
resolution declaring the Society ready **to assume the care of deaconess 
homes wherever such homes shall be entrusted to it, subject to the limita- 
tions of the discipHne and so far as financial considerations will permit." 
At the end of 1 890 six deaconess homes were allied with the Society, — 
Detroit, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Washington, D. C, Pittsburgh and 
Syracuse. To Detroit belongs the honor of having the first deaconess 
home. Today nearly one-half of the work of the Society is embraced in 
this Bureau and forty-five per cent, of all deaconess homes in English- 
speaking Methodism are directly under its supervision. 

This work so auspiciously begun has had not only a miraculous 
growth, but a dramatic one as well. When a wealthy man in the 
United States gives a part of his money for some philanthropic purpose, 
or to an institution of learning, the newspapers herald the gift as a highly 
important bit of news. The fact that the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, a woman's organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
has refused the gift of seven furnished and equipped hospitals, five in 
one year, would be considered far more striking by them did they but 
know of it. Yet such was the case. The Society has not been able 
to take over fast enough the gifts laid in its hands, for lack of trained 
workers! Homes, Training School buildings. Hospitals, Rest Homes, 
Dispensaries and Industrial Settlements, have been turned over to the 
care of the Deaconess Department in rapid succession. The more 
conspicuous does this acquiring of wealth and power for use in God's 
work appear when it is remembered that the workers have taken upon 
themselves the sacrificial living upon a small allowance with no other 
profession or calling, and with provision for their earthly life rested 
entirely in the promised support of the Society through its Deaconess 
Department. 

The administrative work of the Deaconess Department seems some- 

[75] 



what intricate and involved upon first examination. Further study will 
reveal the fact, however, that the women developed a wonderful organi- 
zation, splendidly arranged to care for a very broad and highly special- 
ized work. The work could not now be left to Miss Bancroft alone. 
An assistant secretary was secured, then a Deaconess Bureau was organ- 
ized consisting of secretary, assistant secretary, and an executive com- 
mittee, an advisory council and two members from the Board of Manage- 
ment of each Deaconess Home affiliated with the Society. Complete 
quarterly reports were sent to the Secretary of the Bureau and kept on 
file. Financial reports were made at the end of the year. Connectional 
supervision was maintained by a systemi of transfers from Home to Home 
and by the appointment of graduates from the National Training Schools 
to the several Homes. 

In 1904 the Deaconess Bureau was subdivided into fiva Bureaus and 
a Standing Committee for National Training Schools: ( 1 ) The Eastern 
Deaconess Bureau, (2) The Central Deaconess Bureau, (3) The 
Western Deaconess Bureau, (4) The Utah Deaconess Bureau, (5) 
The Pacific Coast Deaconess Bureau. A Negro Deaconess Bureau was 
provided for with a secretary at Cincinnati. 

Three branches of deaconess work had beem recognized in the church 
at large: 1 . That under the Woman's Home Missionary Society, 2. That 
under control of a German Central Board, and 3. The newly organized 
Methodist Deaconess Association. To harmonize and unite more closely 
all branches of deaconess work, General Conference in 1908 created a 
General Deaconess Board of eleven members; the Board to consist of 
two general superintendents designated by the Board of Bishops, three 
members at large and two from each form of Deaconess administra- 
tion. This General Board was to meet annually to discuss and adjust 
questions relating to deaconess work. It was to have general supervision 
of all deaconess work throughout the church, must approve general rules 
for the government of Deaconess Homes and other deaconess institutions 
and rules for governing all deaconesses however employed. The Gen- 
eral Deaconess Board was to approve for adoption a distinctive garb to 
be worn by all deaconesses throughout the church for their designation 
and for the protection of themselves and the office, and a distinctive garb 
for probationers as well. It was the duty of the Board to secure legal 

[76] 



protection for this garb. The church discipHne states **that all deacon- 
esses who are members of the church in America are and always have 
been deaconesses of the church" and are working and have worked on 
the "church plan" of deaconess work. 

The distinctive features of the deaconess work developed by the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society are as follows: 

1 . Deaconess Homes located in cities may have one-half the dues 
of the auxiliaries of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in the 
cities where the Homes are located. 

2. The deaconesses of the Society are greatly aided by the officials 
of the Deaconess Department. The officers act as intermediaries between 
deaconesses and Conference Deaconess Boards and aid the members of 
the Boards by bringing deaconess graduates to their notice. Thus valu- 
able women trained along specific lines are placed in proper spheres 
of work. 

3. A permanent Deaconess Fund has been established to aid any 
deaconess in failing health to regain her strength and return to her work 
of usefulness, provided she has served the Society eight consecutive years. 
There have been individual cases where the requirement of eight years' 
service has been waived. This fund also cares for those permanently 
incapacitated. 

The action of the General Conference made no certain division of 
deaconess boundaries, hence the Woman's Home Missionary Society was 
free to go throughout the United States unless the new General Deaconess 
Board should prohibit such a move. So it was recommended in 1912 
that three new deaconess Bureaus should be created and a rearrangement 
of the boundaries of the existing Bureaus should be m.ade. In 1 9 1 3 the 
Board of Trustees reported this action taken on deaconess work: *'The 
Deaconess Department shall consist of ten bureaus to be known as ( 1 ) 
The Bureau for National Training Schools, (2) The Bureau for Hos- 
pitals, (3) The New England Bureau, (4) The Eastern Bureau, (5) 
The Central Bureau, (6) The Northern Bureau, (7) The Northwestern 
Bureau, (8) The Pacific Bureau, (9) The Negro Bureau, and (10) 
A Standing Committee for the Permanent Deaconess Fund. The De- 
partment was placed under the supervision of a General Secretary, aided 
by an Executive Committee composed of the secretaries of the respective 

[77] 



bureaus, the treasurer of the Permanent Deaconess Fund, and two mem- 
bers of the Board of Trustees. The duties of the supervising personnel 
were clearly denned. It differed from the other bureau administrations. 
Other bureaus were an entity and each Bureau Secretary was responsible 
for the entire field and reported to the General Society, that the Society 
might hold an unbroken field. In deaconess work **these bureaus could 
not be separated because of the interlacing of common dependence." 
This placing of the administration of the Department under a central office 
was a necessity due to the magnitude of the deaconess work. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society began training workers 
before the Deaconess Bureau as such was thought of, and contributed 
to the first training school at Chicago in October, 1 884. The founding 
of a National Training School quickly followed the beginnings of the 
bureau. Three others were established during the years under the Dea- 
coness Department. The four training schools founded by the National 
Society are the Lucy Webb Hayes, at Washington, D. C. ; Kansas City, 
at Kansas City, Mo. ; San Francisco, at San Francisco, Cal. ; and Mc- 
Crum Training School for Slavonic girls at Uniontown, Pa. Three 
others became national schools later, — Folts Mission Institute, Iowa Bible 
Training School, and the Training School for Negro Girls. 

The National Training Schools have been supported by funds from 
the general treasury and their trained workers have been appointed to 
their places by the General Society. They were placed '*under the 
administration of a standing committee of the Deaconess Department." 
In 1912 this committee became a Bureau for National Training Schools 
under the Deaconess Department. Finally, in 1917, all Training 
Schools, both National and Conference, under the auspices of the Society, 
were placed under a Bureau of Training Schools and were no more under 
the Deaconess Department. 

National Training Schools — These exist to provide trained 
workers, both missionaries and deaconesses, for the institutions of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society. The National Society makes 
special appropriation for the support of these schools, selects their presi- 
dent, or superintendent, and teachers ; also stations their graduates in the 
respective fields of labor. These schools rose in such a manner that they 
necessarily were conducted on the plan of the local Deaconess Home and 

[78] 



were governed by the ordinary rules of the local Home. The growth of 
the institutions made changes inevitable. It was deemed important in 
1 902 that all the National Training Schools should be under one and 
the same kind of government, since their interests were all national, and 
not local. It was desirable to have financial interests cared for in the 
same way, so that results could be carefully studied and compared, and 
finally, that courses of study might provide the same development. 

The following measures were adopted as a policy toward the work : 
I . Separation of local deaconess work from the work of the National 
Training School. 2. Money furnished by the National Society to be 
kept distinct from money used for local deaconess work. 3. Its president 
should administer the funds of a National Training School and report 
to the secretary of the Deaconess Department and to the national treas- 
urer, since all Conferences support the Training School. 

The form of government was to be analogous to that of a college, 
with : 1 . Property-holding Trustees (the laws of nearly every state for- 
bid an outside corporation to hold real estate except through trustees). 
lo A local Executive Committee of which the secretary of the Deaconess 
Bureau, Field Secretary and President of the school are ex-officio mem- 
bers, three members are chosen by the National Board of Trustees, 
non-residents of the city where the school is located, and fifteen resident 
mem.bers of such city, five of whom are men. 3. The report from this 
local executive committee shall be made to the Board of Trustees of the 
Society, who have the decisive voice in the general government of the 
schools. 

Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School — In 1890 
the Deaconess Bureau had determined upon establishing a National 
Training School at Washington, D. C, as a memorial to the Society's 
first president, Mrs. Lucy Webb Flayes, and made a plea for the work 
at the annual meeting. Miss Jane Bancroft also visited Washington, 
D. C, during 1809-90 to present the subject in the leading churches. 
The rental of a house on F Street, N. E., was offered by a Mrs. Susan 
J. Wheeler for the beginning of the work, and it was formally opened 
as a Deaconess Home, May 15, 1890. During the year Mr. Ephraim 
Nash offered his residence in Washington to the Society for the Training 
School already planned as a memorial to Mrs. Hayes. It was a beauti- 

[79] 



ful property at Pierce and North Capital Streets with a $5,000 mort- 
gage, which mortgage was Hfted by the Society in exchange for the gift. 
The Deaconess Home aheady started became part of the National Train- 
ing School until 1 903, when the local and national work were wisely 
separated. The local interests were placed under the care of a committee 
of fifteen, five men and ten women. The Washington people planned 
to develop some special field. In October, 1 89 1 , the Lucy Webb Hayes 
National Training School was opened and became headquarters for the 
deaconess work at Washington. 

The donation of a hospital building soon followed, in 1 894, the gift 
of Mr. W. J. Sibley as a memorial for his deceased wife. That same 
year the institution was chartered by Act of Congress and the various 
departments, Lucy Webb Hayes Training School, and Sibley Hospital, 
forming one corporation, were unified under one administration. As the 
years passed the work grew and the National Training School was 
expanded beyond the most ambitious of the Society's dreams. Sibley 
Hospital was enlarged and a fine new plant for the Training School 
was built in the same block and called Rust Hall. It was the largest 
edifice yet erected by the women of Methodism and was a suitable monu- 
ment for a great society to erect to its principal founder. The original 
Training School building, "Nash Hall," was used as an annex to Sibley, 
which in four years had doubled its original size, paid its own expenses 
for the year 1 903, and had realized a sum sufficient to meet the cost of 
important improvements. The property was added to by the purchase 
of houses on North Capitol Street, standing between the arms of the 
institution, giving the Society the entire frontage on North Capitol Street 
from Pierce to M streets. In 1913, Robinson Hall, a fireproof con- 
struction equipped as a strictly modern hospital, was completed on this 
site, as a part of Sibley Hospital. It bore the honored name of devoted 
friends of deaconess work, — Mr. and Mrs. George C. Robinson (the 
latter, as Miss Jane Bancroft, having been identified with the work from 
its beginning) . This hospital is national in character and all Methodism 
was allowed a part in its erection. When built it was the only denomina- 
tional Protestant hospital and the most complete hospital in the nation's 
capitol city. It receives no public funds. 

In 1908 this well-equipped plant, consisting of Sibley Hall, 

„^ [80] 







b^i'i^^^i 





Administration and other buildings of the Tuberculosis Hospital, 
Albuquerque, New Mexico 




Methodist Deaconess Hospital, Rapid City, South Dakota 



Robinson Hall and Rust Hall was valued at $250,000. By 1911 
the National Training School maintained four departments: (1) The 
bioie School, in which both theoretical and practical teaching was given 
to young women for the work of deaconess, missionary, evangelist and 
Bible teacher. (2) Domestic Science School, in which cooking, sewing 
and household economy were taught. (3) Kindergarten School, where 
women were trained in the use of the best kindergarten methods. (4) 
Sibley Hospital, for the training of Christian nurses. In 1918-19 the 
kindergarten school was discontinued and instead instruction in kinder- 
garten subjects such as mother plays and nature study was given by a 
graduated kindergartner. Besides scientific instruction, a new course was 
open to students, giving them practice in parish visiting, social settlement 
work, associated charities, visiting and co-operating in various institutions 
and agencies of the church, philanthropic and social service. The Spanish 
language was taught also, 

Sibley Hospital — Sibley Hospital, established in 1890, is a 
notable part of the Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School. Dur- 
ing the nineteen years of its existence it has become a modern, well- 
equipped, high-grade, self-sustaining hospital as well as an excellent 
Training School for nurse-deaconesses. There were nineteen different 
denominations represented among its patients, one-quarter were free cases 
and in addition to four hundred emergency cases there were two thousand 
cases of district work cared for by Sibley Hospital. 

The hospital is unique in that it has no resident medical staff. Any 
reputable physician may attend his patients in the hospital whether 
admitted with or without charge, and no discrimination is made as to race 
or religion. One year two hundred physicians had cases in Sibley. In 
1909, Congress courteously tendered the hospital a contract for caring for 
such patients as the Government might see fit to send them. After con- 
sideration, the offer was respectfully declined on the ground that such 
arrangements would demand work which would interfere with the object 
of the work at the National Training School. The training ranks with that 
of any hospital. A gift from Mrs. Elizabeth Haywood resulted in the 
opening of pathological and X-ray laboratories and a free dispensary in 
1915. The latest report of this wonderful school for nurses makes note 

[81] 



of thorough practice by student nurses in medical, gynecological, obstet- 
rical and children's wards. The hospital has had no government appro- 
priation and the bills run high. It has had great help, however, from the 
Sibley Hospital Guild of Washington, D. C, organized in 1903. The 
two hundred ladies of the Guild have supplied as much as $1 ,500 to the 
hospital in a year and paid for the elevator installed in the building. 

Kansas City National Training School^ — This school has 
been called the **hub of the Western Deaconess Bureau." Its import- 
ance can be understood fromi the fact that it was needed for the many 
young women of the Middle West who wished to enter Training 
Schools. Kansas City also furnished a great field for practicci in Chris- 
tian service. It had a large foreign section. Crowded factory districts 
and slum conditions in **the bottoms" were bad. The school had an 
industrial mission in the flood district, for the repeated overflow of the 
river caused much suffering. Two hundred children attended and took 
sewing and basket weaving. In 1903 the Mission building was burned ; 
the kindergarten was shut off and floods added greatly to the wreck. 
Bethany Hospital had been in existence at Kansas City, Mo., for eight 
years before the Society began work in connection with it. In 1889 
they opened a Deaconess and Bible Training School at 251 Orchard 
Avenue, with three people, the superintendent, a visiting deaconess and a 
kinder gartner. They offered deaconess training in conjunction with nurse 
training at Bethany. 

The old saying that a prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country could not hold true of this Training School. It became very 
popular with the people of the city. Ministers, teachers, chanty workers, 
doctors, lawyers and business men vied with each other to do it a service. 
Nearby Conferences raised $ 1 ,000 toward a new Home now 
named Fisk Hall, after a former National president of the Society, 
Mrs. Clinton B. Fisk. One business man, Mr. C. W. Schoelkopf, 
gave the Society a ten-acre tract of land high above the river. The 
building put upon this valuable site cost $15,000. City improve- 
ments followed so fast upon its erection that the proi^erty was worth 
$40,000 by the time it was done. When donated, this was the most 
valuable gift ever received by the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

[82] 



A second building was added to the Training School in 1 908 and 
was crowded with students. It was soon seen that an administration 
building was necessary for the expansion of this great and growing work, 
and plans were made and ground broken for such a building. The gift 
of $2,500 made by the heirs of Mr. Schoelkopf, the former benefactor 
of Fisk, made Schoelkopf Hall possible. The alumnae of the Training 
School gave $2,000 toward the building and later pledged money for a 
Steinway piano for Bancroft Chapel in Schoelkopf Hall. The new 
building when complete was pronounced the best equipped building of its 
kind in Methodism. It cost $80,000. Although the debt was quite 
heavy, the friends and Bureau secretary were very courageous about it. 
Then National appropriations were cut and they were dismayed. The 
nearby Conferences came to their aid and the debt was reduced to 
$6,000. This has since been paid by the National Society. 

McCrum National Training School — Perhaps no Training 
School in the country appeals to the imagination as much as McCrum 
National Training School for Slavonic girls. It is located at Uniontown, 
in the centre of the foreign population of Western Pennsylvania. Its 
last enrollment included twenty-two girls, eleven Bohemians, one Mora- 
vian, one Magyar, one Russian, three Slovak and five Polish. This 
National Training School of the Society was designed to meet the needs 
of Slavonic girls who were either born in this country or, having come 
from Europe, wish to do missionary work among their people. The num- 
ber of nationalities makes it necessary to have lessons in English, 
Bohemian, Polish or Slovak languages; the course of study is funda- 
mentally like the course planned for all the National Training Schools, 
but emphasis is laid on a thorough course in Bible study and special 
courses in English. There is also added class work in Bohemian and 
Slovak grammar and reading. Practical mission work is required among 
the Slavonic people in the surrounding coke region. 

The principal of this school. Miss Elizabeth Davis, is especially fitted 
to supervise this special work. In 1911 she visited Bohemia to perfect 
herself in the language and to study the home-life of the Bohemians who 
were coming to America. She brought back with her three Bohemian 
girls who entered the Training School and completed the course. 

McCrum originated in a Home secured and fitted up in the inter- 

[83] 



ests of mission work for foreigners in the extensive Connellsville coke 
region of which Uniontown is the centre. Although it was adopted in 

1909 by the Society, to be known as the McCrum National Training 
School for Slavonic Young Women, no appropriation was made for it. 

1 he managers of the Society had agreed to assume no financial responsi- 
bility for new work until debts already incurred should be discharged. 
A local committee of nine women was elected toi look after this fascinat- 
ing project and they were instructed to do what they could. The com- 
mittee had no money on hand, and none had been pledged, so they set 
to work to **do what they could." The year's result was $1,150 
pledged. In addition, Mrs. T. F. Pershing, a member of the committee, 
gave $5,000 in memory of her daughter, to be known as the Marie 
Greenland Endowment Fund for McCrum National Training School. 

1 hen the school received its first appropriation. In 1913 a fine property 
was acquired for $25,000. Thci main building was a handsome old 
mansion, while the garage was made over into a dormitory and recitation 
rooms. Pledges of $14,000 had been made by Queen Esther Circles, 
Mothers' Jewels and auxiHaries of the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society. The McCrum alumnae have given $2,000 since the new hall 
was opened. 

The 1918 class was the largest ever graduated from McCrum. It 
included eight young women, four Bohemian, two Polish and two Slovak. 
This process of Americanization has been carried on for nine years by 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society with methods which are fast 
being adopted by other agencies in the country. 

San Francisco National Training School — In 1891 Miss 
Jane Bancroft visited San Francisco and initiated deaconess work in that 
city. The Training School places its beginning on that date. The Dea- 
coness Home was closed in 1 893 after the death of the superintendent 
and the work was not resumed until 1 894. The early work of the 
deaconesses consisted of prison and jail meetings, ship and hospital work, 
rescue work, connected with the rescue of Oriental slave girls brought 
through the Golden Gate, and the holding of evangelistic services. The 
new superintendent also instituted a Bible Training School. In 1901 a 
good property was purchased and the school installed as the National 
Training School for the Pacific coast. Methodists of San Francisco 

[84] 



helped the school in every way possible, and especially, as teachers for 
the training classes. It was in a fair way to advance rapidly, being the 
one Training School on the coast, situated among half a million people 
from every quarter of the globe. The earthquake and fire which ruined 
the city in 1 906 delayed the enlargement of the institution and the build- 
ing of *Tiew and handsome buildings. Methodists of that region were 
put to it in the general rebuilding of their homes and business places, so 
that the claims for a new equipment for the National Training School 
could not be pushed. 

The building stood through the catastrophe, but had fallen chimneys, 
broken plaster and fractured foundation walls. An account given by the 
Home people is of historical interest: 

*'In San Francisco, 1 906 will be remembered as the earthquake year, 
and in the 'Training School' the class of 1 906 as the 'earthquake class' ! 

"While the great city was still asleep and quiet, save for the spar- 
rows, the milkmen and the early street car, with the suddenness of a 
thunderbolt the city began to shake and quake and reel like a drunken 
man, and in terror and with blanched faces, without waiting to gather 
up their priceless treasures, a half million frightened people rushed head- 
long into the streets, believing, many of them, that the end of the world 
had come. Within an hour in fifty different localities the fire fiend had 
started on its destructive march. For three days and nights the red, angry 
billows rolled up and down over streets until the homes of 200,000 
people had been consumed and $400,000,000 worth of property had 
been destroyed. Again and again the fire approached within a block of 
us, but at the end of the awful holocaust the Homd stood erect and safe. 
With the first shock every book was thrown from the shelves which lined 
the walls of our large library and office room. The business desk was 
open and everything in the pigeon-holes was scattered as well as contents 
of the drawers. The Home became a refuge for many shelterless people, 
and during weary months since all our energy and skill have been gladly 
given to those who stood at our doors pleading for help and sympathy." 

From that day the San Francisco Training School has worked heroic- 
ally against difficulties. The students have filled the old building, repaired 
after its terrible shake-up of 1906. Among the students at the San 
Francisco School were two Mexicans and one Korean, training for work 

[85] 



among their own people. Now^ in the year 1 920, it is about to come 
into its own in the way of a thorough revision and re-equipment. At the 
1918 annual meeting, initial action was taken upon this most pressing 
case. A special committee was appointed at the request of the Bureau 
secretary to consider the whole situation: 1. As to the advisability of 
separating the local deaconess work and the Training School then housed 
in one building. These were separated a year later. 2. The appoint- 
ment of a president. The Committee secured the services of Rev. A. C. 
Stevens, D.D., of San Francisco. The study course is adapted to meet 
Western needs in conununity service and rural work, and a school of 
religious education for local Sunday-school workers and Epworth League 
workers has been established. 

National Training School for Negro Deaconesses — The 
National Training School for Negro Deaconesses was first located in 
Cincinnati, Ohio, under the care of Rev. W. H. Riley, for the training 
of young women of his own race who wished to do deaconess work 
among their own people. He was a graduate of Gammon Theological 
Seminary and competent to take up this work, which received the endorse- 
ment of Bishop Thoburn and the Society workers in the city. He started 
in with little financial assistance. The school received a small appropria- 
tion from the Society in 1901. After two years, Mr. Riley was moved 
to Indianapolis and the training of deaconesses was carried on from there. 
By 1 902 "deaconess work among the Negro people of Methodism seemed 
to be largely centering in the Woman's Home Missionary Society." A 
Miss Hall, a graduate of Thayer, with additional deaconess training at 
Boston Deaconess Home, finished a year of excellent work at Atlanta, 
demonstrating thereby the possibilities of Negro deaconess work. Four 
graduates had finished under Mr. Riley. The Delaware Conference 
( Negro) asked to have its deaconess work reported with the work of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society. A desire was voiced to locate the 
Training School at Atlanta, Ga., so that the deaconesses could have 
special instruction at Gammon Theological Seminary. 

Still the deaconess Bureau for Negro work found itself face to face 
with two problems to be solved before a Training School could be 
located. There was need of competent, sensible, consecrated women, 
well-trained for service, and a more general willingness on the part of 

[86] 



the Negro churches to employ these women when so equipped. The 
perplexing question of the Training School dragged along for two years. 
There was a general opinion that if the advanced course of study pre- 
scribed by the Discipline could be grafted on the curriculum of the higher 
schools of the Freedmen's Aid Society, the need would be met. Then 
the outlook for the school grew brighter. The Negroes began to under- 
stand the work better. The need for workers increased, their people 
were coming in large numbers from the South to the North and the 
deaconesses were a potent factor in building them into the church. 

In 1915 the National Training School for Negro Deaconesses was 
located at Asheville, N. C. A corner property was secured with an 
eight-room house. This was admirably adapted to the stated needs, with 
opportunity for caring for the work as it should develop. The school 
opened with a small class of students, graduates of industrial schools, 
and a small corps of good teachers. The first three graduates, the class 
of 1918, all from the Kindergarten Department, entered mission fields 
in Southern cities. In October, 1919, the training of Negro girls was 
transferred to the Iowa National Bible Training School, at Des Moines, 
Iowa. 

FoLTS Mission Institute — Folts Mission Institute at Herkimer, 
N. Y., was transferred to the Woman's Home Missionary Society from 
the Northern New York Conference, in 1914. The property, with 
bonds and securities, was valued at $1 50,000. Eleven thousand dollars 
indebtedness was paid by the Society on receiving it. The purpose of 
Folts Mission Institute is to give a practical training to young women 
for mission and deaconess work. The course of study prepared for the 
students is based on the course outlined by the Deaconess Bureau. It 
includes Bible Study, Kindergarten, Domestic Arts and Science. The 
Bible course includes studies in psychology, sociology, church history, 
comparative religions, history of missions, reHgious pedagogy, music, 
elocution, physical culture and nature study. 

In 1 9 1 6 the Institute offered a special course in religious education 
to local Sunday-school and Epworth League workers. The third year 
closed with four graduates and ten students already in the field. Folts 
became a National Training School in 191 8-19. Eight courses of stud) 
were prepared to meet the needs of the various students. 

[87] 



Conference Training Schools — Four deaconess Homes early 
established departments for deaconess training: Iowa Bible School at 
Des Moines, Iowa, became a National Training School in 1919; 
Aldrich Memorial Home, Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Brooklyn Deaconess 
Home, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; and Dwight Blakeslee Memorial School, New 
Haven, Conn., have been supported by special Conference funds, 
and conducted and maintained by Conference societies and activities. 
Their aim has been to furnish Conference workers. Students trained 
in these Homes could not be taken from the jurisdiction of a local 
Conference and placed elsewhere by the General Society unless that 
Conference released the worker to a broader or more specialized work. 
The General Society has always been glad to place workers not needed 
in local Conferences. These Conference Training Schools follow the 
course of study required for National Training Schools, with additions 
to the curriculum to meet the local needs. The Brooklyn Training 
School added Italian classes to help workers in opening up work among 
Italians of the neighborhood. 

Dwight Blakeslee Memorial Training School oilers opportunity for 
study in the School of Religion at Yale University. It has done very 
effective practical work in the taking over of a rural church. This school 
developed a Sunday-school and organized a company of young people 
who contribute to the general benevolences of the church. 

Candidates for admission to the Training Schools of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society must have, at least, a high school course or 
its equivalent. The regular lines of activity are Bible, domestic science, 
kindergarten, social service, and at Washington, D. C, training of 
Christian nurses. 

The Deaconess — The pivot upon which all the elaborate and 
highly specialized work of the Deaconess Department swings is the dea- 
coness. If the trained worker is available, the work v/ill go on so long 
as there is misery and sin in the world. The supplying of this important 
field is not left to chance nor alone to the leadings of a benign Providence. 
The local deaconess boards seek young women in their territory whom 
they take into the Home for a series of testings and thence send them to 
the Training School. The deaconesses have come largely from Metho- 
dist Episcopal churches, Sunday-schools and Epworth Leagues. Some 

[88] 



are from cities, others from rural districts. All are followers of Christ. 
The need is urgent and the call constant and the demand for them often 
embarrassing. The discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church enu- 
merates as the duties of the deaconess those which the Society has been 
meeting for twenty-seven years. No person can be recognized or em- 
ployed as a deaconess of the Methodist Episcopal Church who fails to 
comply with disciplinary requirements. Each deaconess wears the pre- 
scribed garb. She is given a license without which she cannot do active 
work or wear the garb. This license is renewed yearly, after she has 
made her annual report personally or through the Quarterly Conference 
to the Annual Conference with which she is connected. 

There are several types of deaconesses: 

1 . The Visiting Deaconess. A parish deaconess who becomes a 
member of the church which she serves. 

2. The Field Deaconess. A specialist who instructs people in 
carrying out plans of work. 

3. The Travelers' Aid Deaconess. One who meets trains and helps 
girls and women at railway stations. 

4. The Kindergarten Deaconess. A specialist in the Christian train- 
ing of young children. 

5. The Nurse Deaconess. A specialist in ministering to both sick 
bodies and souls. 

6. The Missionary Deaconess. A city mission worker. 

7. The Rural Deaconess. One who ministers to people in country 
districts. 

8. The Deaconess has even preached in neglected districts, where 
preaching had been unknown for years. 

The splendid individual work of the deaconesses of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society is necessarily buried in the annals of the 
deaconess Homes with which they are respectively connected. It is 
pleasant to record, however, that the workers chosen by the Governor 
of Ohio and the Mayor of Cleveland to represent state and city at a 
National Conference of Charities and Correction held at Buffalo, were 
both deaconesses. At St. Paul, Minn., municipal authorities appointed 

[89] 



the superintendent of the Deaconess Home of that city as probation 
officer. These are only two instances of the many in which municipal 
and state authorities have taken counsel with the deaconesses. 

When a woman becomes a deaconess she lays aside all other lines 
of work, securing her support from the Society. During the years the 
deaconesses had an allowance of first eight dollars, then fifteen dollars, 
and now twenty dollars, a month for clothes and sundries. It is only 
just that the relation of the deaconess to the church and its officials be so 
defined by the General Deaconess Board as to make the deaconess feel 
that she is a part of a great organization of the church. The demand was 
that she must act her part and respect church law, while the church was 
committed in return to shelter, protect, endorse and strengthen the 
deaconess, furnishing her full life support. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society early met the problem 
of caring for those deaconesses who were worn out by heavy duties or 
broken in health before their time. Rest Homes became a part of their 
wonderful equipment. There the deaconess could go for a time to rest 
and recuperate from the strenuous work which her calling demands. 
Among the Rest Homes enjoyed by the deaconesses are Bancroft-Taylor, 
at Ocean Grove, N. J., founded in 1 896, and first opened for the winter 
season in 1902; Thompson, at Mountain Lake Park, Md., purchased 
in 1899, and cared for by ladies of the Baltimore Conference; Caroline, 
a cottage located at Round Lake Camp Ground, presented to Troy 
Conference in memory of Mrs. Carohne O. Bancroft; Elvira Olney, 
Ludington, Mich., at Epworth Heights Assembly Grounds on the shores 
of Lake Michigan, under the care of the Michigan Conference, the result 
of an appeal in 1901 ; Kate Cunningham, at Ridgeview Park, Ridge- 
view, Pa., under the care of the Pittsburgh Conference; Fenton Memorial 
Home, Chautauqua, N. Y. ; Beulah Heights, Oakland, Cal. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society has been very thorough in 
its work and the Deaconess Department has been true to tradition in 
establishing in 1901 a permanent deaconess fund for superannuated 
deaconesses and in ruling that each deaconess institution should pay in 
to the fund ten dollars a year for each licensed deaconess and five dollars 
per year for each probationer in the institution. Each station served by 
a deaconess shall pay fifteen dollars for each licensed deaconess and ten 

[90] 



dollars for unlicensed deaconesses. Through this assessment, gifts and 
annuities, the Permanent Deaconess Fund has totaled $13,740. In 
1917-18, forty-two workers were cared for and ten replaced in active 
service. To increase the fund the secretary of the Permanent Deaconess 
Fund in each Conference was expected to raise one hundred dollars in 
the Conference each year. 

The Deaconess Home — The Deaconess Home is not only the 
place where the deaconess lives. It is also the centre from which go out 
workers with help and relief to the surrounding community. It is the 
lodestone to which the unfortunate, the helpless and sin-sick are drawn 
for succor, encouragement and the ministry of God's people. 

The permanency of the Deaconess Home in any Conference depends 
entirely upon the ability to keep in the training schools year after year 
a succession of strong, spiritually-minded young women. The work of the 
Deaconess Home depends upon the interpretation of the needs of the 
community where it is located and the wise use of the resources at 
the command of the deaconess family in the Home. 

It was the early policy of the deaconess bureaif to refrain from inter- 
fering with the internal management of the individual Deaconess Homes. 
The authority of the Homes centered in the local board of managers and 
the Conference deaconess board. In 1 895 authority was granted to all 
cities and towns where there were Deaconess Homes to retain one-half 
the dues of the auxiliaries in those towns for the support of the local 
Home. Thus, the support of the Deaconess Homes rested upon the sum 
gained from partial dues and from local support, while other mission 
work of the Society depends upon appropriations from the general treasury 
and from special gifts raised by the auxiliaries. 

Not all Homes are equipped in the same way, nor situated in 
equally fortunate locations. It is to the credit of the women of the 
Society, however, that every effort is continually put forth to reach the 
ideal Deaconess Home, a modern, comfortable, restful Home, well 
equipped for its particular work, beautiful to look upon, wholesome to 
live in. The majority of these Homes are of such a standard. 

Connected with each Deaconess Home is the work which that par- 
ticular Home has developed, as it sought to meet the emergencies created 

[91] 



by the life about it. The study of these connectional vocations results 
in unbounded praise for the entire working constituency. The list 
includes orphanages, hospitals, dispensaries, day nurseries, employment 
bureaus, special relief work, coal yards, farms, fresh air camps, penny 
savings accounts, institutional buildings, cafeterias, social settlements and 
industrial work. 

A few specific examples will suffice to show the variety, quality and 
magnitude of the work. The Cleveland Deaconess Home has a fresh 
air camp in the woods. They established one for the children under 
their jurisdiction and later another, in close proximity, for the mothers of 
the children. The mothers were not only given a much-needed rest 
within calling distance of their little folks, but were also surrounded by 
clean, model housekeeping as a pointed suggestion of what they might do 
for their own families. They had a day nursery at West Side Cottage. 
The children were taken care of until the family had become self-sup- 
porting. Then the mother had to stay at home to care for the children 
herself. This West Side Cottage was called the Deaconess Community 
House. They distributed; from the Cleveland Homes as many as four 
hundred and fifty baskets of fruits and jelHes in a season. 

The crowning success of Cleveland has been its Industrial Relief 
Department, which has indeed solved a problem of support and supplied 
a need. Women not physically able to do hard work are employed in 
mending and making over second-hand garments. These are sold at low 
prices to people who cannot make or secure new garments, and the money 
pays the workers. This industrial relief will be enlarged by the Good- 
will Industry, being opened by the Methodist Episcopal Church at 
Cleveland. 

This Home cared for over one hundred children in 1914. The 
deaconesses looked after them on a sixty-acre farm at Williamsville, 
where they trained the children as a means of saving our cities. Buffalo 
Home also has a hospital ward. Cunningham Home, at Urbana, 111., 
is a Conference orphanage. San Francisco supports a settlement called 
the "Friendly Centre" in the "Little Italy" of that city. The Detroit 
Home has two missions under its care. 

The Philadelphia Home has a variety of work. One deaconess 
gives her whole time to immigrant work. Its industrial department has 

[92] 



included sewing, dressmaking, sloyd and wood carving, printing, basketry, 
chair caning and domestic science, fresh air work, mothers' and fathers' 
meetings. They have a Junior League, Boys' Temperance Legion, Bible 
study hour, club work, kindergarten, kitchen garden. The penny sav- 
ings account has been very successful. The relief work at Philadelphia 
has taken the form of selling second-hand garments cheap, and conduct- 
ing a coal yard. It has been a matter of general knowledge that the 
small buckets of coal bought by the poor are costly, making the aggregate 
cost of a ton from three to five times the rate paid by people who buy in 
large quantities. The Philadelphia Deaconess Home buys coal by the 
ton at a reasonable price and sells it to the poor by the bucketful at the 
cost price. The boys who help at the coal yard are paid with second- 
hand clothes. 

Where there is no Home and deaconess work is needed, deaconesses 
are sometimes sent to work as pastors' assistants or to begin missionary 
work at some place designated by the Board of Trustees of the Society. 
The stations at Portland, Me. ; New Haven, Conn. ; Brooklyn, N. Y. ; 
Jersey City, N. J. ; Albany, Utica and Binghamton, N. Y., and 
Altoona, Pa., minister to Italians. At Baltimore, Md., they reach 
Bohemians, Poles and Slavs. Baltimore Deaconess Home has done 
splendid work for years, reaching yearly over 1 ,600 children. This 
Home has beautiful institutional buildings, which enable them to do 
first-class institutional work along all accepted lines. 



NATIONAL HOSPITALS 



The Training Schools have grown up largely under the fostering 
care of the general Society, while the hospitals have, with few exceptions, 
developed in the Deaconess Department, and have been under its super- 
vision at some time. 

Brewster Hospital at Jacksonville, Fla,, grew out of a nurse training 
class at Boylan Industrial Home and School for Negro Girls, and is the 
only Negro **house of mercy"' under the jurisdiction of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society, and the only school for Negro nurses. 

Sibley Memorial Hospital, the Nurse Training Department of the 
Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School at Washington, D. C. ; 

[93] 



Graham Protestant Hospital at Keokuk, Iowa; Ellen A. Burge Dea- 
coness Hospital at Springfield, Mo. ; the Tuberculosis Hospital at Albu- 
querque, N. M. ; the Deaconess Hospital at Rapid City, S. D. ; and 
Brewster Hospital at Jacksonville, Fla., are the property of the General 
Society. That is, they are under the control of its Board of Trustees. 
The rest listed among the Society's institutions either belong to Confer- 
ences, or are affiliated with the Woman's Home Missionary Society. 
Those thus affiliated have their own by-laws and constitutions, that 
are not opposed to the by-laws and constitution of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society. Where they are affiliated with the Society, 
the women of the Conference are the Board of Managers, and get credit 
through the Society for money and supplies given to the hospital. The 
Indiana Methodist Episcopal Hospital is one thus affiliated. 

Repeated requests came to the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
for it to take over the care of Graham Hospital at Keokuk, Iowa. This 
was done in 1901. It v/as a fine hospital, equipped with appliances 
equal to the modern demand. The work was done so well by the dea- 
conesses and the owners were so pleased that in 1905 they gave title 
deeds of the property to the Woman's Home Missionary Society. This 
institution became the special care of the Iowa Conference, and met the 
demands for a Protestant hospital. It needed enlarging as early as 1 904 
and ever has been full to overcrowding. Later a Home for nurses was 
donated to the Society. A woman's guild is a great aid to Graham 
Hospital. Forty different physicians and surgeons practiced there in one 
year. The nurse deaconess course for graduation requires three years. 

Ellen A. Burge Deaconess Hospital was opened Thanksgiving Day, 
1907, at Springfield, Mo. It has a superb location, high on the moun- 
tains, in the queen city of the **Ozarks." Six months later a second build- 
ing was built and the first was used as a nurses' home. This gives great 
service to all the surrounding country where no other Methodist Hospital 
is available. During the first year one hundred and twenty-four patients 
were cared for. 

Beth-el Hospital, Colorado Springs, belongs to the Colorado Con- 
ference. A deaconess aid society had possession of an institution at 
Colorado Springs. It was first used as a deaconess sanitarium and then 
transferred to the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Conference. 

[94] 



In 1 903 the women of the Conference assumed the task of raising money 
for Beth-el Hospital. After five years of work, $50,000 was pledged 
on a new building. Ground was given by General Palmer, and the 
pavilion plan of building was carried out, a main building, with wings 
connected with the main building by corridors. In 1 9 1 1 a second build- 
ing was erected. This covered an entire city square and when complete 
cost $150,000. The Hospital Guild, composed of two hundred women 
from all the Protestant churches of the city, helped materially in gather- 
ing funds. The women placed a paviHon within the grounds for con- 
valescing children. A new Home for nurses was erected and an X-ray 
machine installed. Among the large number of patients were people from 
nineteen states of the Union and one from a foreign country. 

The Society has had to refuse taking over many hospitals offered to 
it. The reason for this apparent indifference was quite simple, — the lack 
of trained nurse deaconesses. The cares of a hospital are very exacting 
and the demands so imperative that the Society could not conscientiously 
undertake such a responsibility unless nurses were available. 

In recent years a new group of deaconess hospitals has appeared. 
Among them are: 

1. Holden Hospital, Carbondale, 111., a gift from Mrs. Carrie 
Holden in June, 1913. It is the only Protestant Hospital in Southern 
Illinois, located where seventy trains daily make it accessible from every 
direction. 

2. The Methodist Hospital at Los Angeles, Cal., founded in 1915. 
It has a property value of $245,000, indebtedness $1 15,000, annuities 
amounting to $12,000, and an endowment of $17,750. In the year 
1918 it had 2.274 patients. 

3. The Methodist Deaconess Hospital, Rapid City, S. D., opened 
in 1912 at the gateway to the Black Hills, ministers to a large popula- 
tion, scattered approximately over 50,000 square miles. A fire in 
March, 1914, destroyed the Institution, but it was rebuilt and an extra 
story added as well as sun porches, fire-escapes and elevator shaft. 

4. Harwood Hospital, later known as the Methodist Deaconess 
Hospital, at Albuquerque, N. M., was the gift of Rev. Thomas Har- 
wood. It is on a seven-acre plot, one and one-half miles east from 

[95] 



Albuquerque, N. M. Tlie invigorating air is a great factor in restoring 
health to its one class, — tuberculous patients. It was opened in 1912 
with four tents, two porch rooms and a seven-room house for adminis- 
tration, and accommodated five patients, all young men from the East. 
In 1914 the hospital had four new cottages. Each was a square room 
12x12 feet, accommodating one person and costing $250. In 1916 a 
new property was purchased with two buildings and fifty cottages. The 
new administration building is of Spanish mission architecture. The 
capacity soon leaped from seventeen to fifty. By 1918 the hospital 
needed more cottages and a pavilion. More buildings and expansion are 
now contemplated. 

In 1918 the Deaconess Committee for Hospitals became a Deacon- 
ess Hospital Bureau. 



[96 



Oriental Allies — Hawaiian Plantations 



Oriental Homes, Schools and Settlements 



Name 

Oriental (Chinese) 
Ellen Stark Ford 
Katherine Blaine 
Jane Couch Memorial 
Susannah Wesley 



Location 

San Francisco, California 
San Francisco, California 
Seattle, Washington 
Los Angeles, California 
Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands 



[98] 



VI 



ORIENTAL ALLIES— HAWAIIAN 
PLANTATIONS 



THERE have been many diverse opinions about the Orientals on the 
Pacific coast. Their condition, their characteristics, their place in 
the nation, their property and civic rights have been more or less matters 
of discussion and legislation. The larger number have lived in San 
Francisco and for many years interest has centered around the Chinese 
and Japanese there. The Chinese have been characterized as a docile, 
patient, apt race. Their friends have called them victims of outrages 
inflicted on them through prejudice. Certain it is that they have suffered 
boycott, persecution and hard times. Whether the legislation was cruel 
and hasty, or otherwise, it embittered the minds of the Chinese both here 
and in China. The legislation which bore directly on conditions of 
interest to the Woman's Home Missionary Society included the following : 
( 1 ) All Oriental boys born in the United States are citizens of this 
country. (2) In 1879 lawmakers of the Golden State made provision 
in a new constitution that Mongolians should never vote, classing Chinese, 
idiots, insane people and women in the same category. To be doubly 
sure they added the clause, — **No native of China shall ever enjoy the 
elective franchise." (3) They provided separate schools for Mongolian 
children. 

As early as 1 884 conditions in San Francisco had set into a mould 
that defied years of labor and prayers to refashion. The people were 
unsettled for the most part, single men without homes or real estate, who 
moved from place to place wherever the drift of employment demanded. 
In the sweatshops of Chinatov/n patient women with babies strapped to 
their backs worked till midnight on overalls for ten cents a dozen. Some 
women were bound- footed, some lived under ground for six years. Mis- 
sionaries wending their way into all sorts of places to nurse the sick 

[99] 



stumbled upon "ghoulish chambers of silence" and found sick girls left 
to die between coffined corpses and boxes of dead men's bones. 

In 1900 there were 5,000 Oriental women in America, 1,500 
slaves and 200 of them little girl slaves. Misery did not fall on the poor 
alone, for 1,000 wealthy women in San Francisco were as pagan as 
those in Tokyo and Tientsin. There were working girls in need of a 
home and incentives to live good, clean lives, and helpless girls appealing 
for aid. A practice somewhat similar to the American custom of binding 
out children till of age was followed by the Chinese in the United States, 
but was subject to many and worse abuses from people untouched by 
Christianity. The blighting yellow slave traffic had fixed its hideous 
grip upon the lives of hundreds of innocent people. Data gathered in 
1902 revealed the fact that only ten per cent, of Chinese and Japanese 
children were in school and ninety per cent, were roaming the streets, 
absorbing the bad thoughts, words and deeds of races other than their 
own. In 1 904 a great influx of Japanese girls gave a twist to affairs that 
threatened to break down the wall of defence built by Government officials 
and missionaries alike. 

Tuen Tson Hsi, empress dowager of China, was not a high-born 
lady. Her father, made poor by a rebel uprising, was a rice planter. 
Great floods had destroyed the rice fields and the family was in poverty. 
One clay little Tson Hsi suggested that her father sell her and get money 
for food. This was the beginning of a custom in vogue in China for 
years. It was transplanted to **China in America" and followed by 
Oriental people dwelling in the land of the free, six years after the close 
of the War of the Rebellion and the abolition of slavery. 

Children were sold for various reasons. Merchants brought them 
from old China to serve small-footed women and bound-footed children. 
They passed from family to family, from master to master, and finally 
arrived at places unfit for them. They were sent into vile places on 
errands, were made to carry burdens far too heavy for them. An infant 
seven months old, Ah Saw by name, was sold because of the poverty of 
the parent. Another was sold to pay the funeral expenses of the mother. 
A group of girls was sold to pay off the gambling debts of their fathers. 
Others were kidnapped. Although these slaves were not knocked down 
to the highest bidder, they were sold through a system devised by those 

[100] 



who carefully evaded the law while trafficking in human lives. There 
were other slaves besides the children used as drudges and cruelly mis- 
treated by their masters. These were the women and girls brought over 
to this country for immoral purposes. 

A company of girls would be brought to this country expecting honest 
work and find themselves sold to immoral lives. Beautiful women brought 
as high as $3,000 in these silent slave markets of an American city, while 
records state that a baby girl was sold for $250 from a brothel. In 
1902 Japanese girls began replacing the Chinese slaves because they 
could be smuggled into the country more easily than the Chinese. And 
in 1904 a report was made that all the dens in Chinatown were being 
filled with Japanese girls, — young, pretty, trapped. Advertisements in 
English-speaking papers of the city were couched in such language that 
the dealer was able to evade the law against slavery in America. A 
quotation in print reads as follows: **Stock in trade and goodwill of a 
house for sale. Mine Law Nong Tuck secretly escaped to China on the 
1 4th day of present month, leaving behind the whole business, stock in 
trade, etc., of her place in Sullivan alley. If any of our country men 
wish to purchase stock they may visit the house and talk personally to 
the creditors." It was explained in court that **stock in trade" meant 
female slaves. While this notice did not tell directly of women for sale, 
any Chinese reading it would receive no other impression. 

In 1 869 a few Christian people began to * 'patrol the city of San 
Francisco in search of the lost." The result was the founding of two 
rescue homes for women, — one by the Presbyterians, and one by the 
Methodists. The Methodist Home for Orientals was established in a 
building belonging to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church and was under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Gibson. This was 
a rescue Home. A few years later a Woman's Missionary Society of 
the Pacific Coast was organized, auxiliary to the Missionary Society, 
and existed until 1893-94, when it went over to the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society with its rescue home, inmates and rescued girls. 
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a Japanese Home for unemployed sick 
and homeless girls had been kept open. In 1901 this Japanese Home 
was closed coincident with the dedication of the new Oriental Home of 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society. Old China had not carried 

[ 101 ] 



the custom originated by Tuen Tson Hsi to the limit that it was carried 
in the United States, for at the dedication of the Oriental Home, the 
Consul General Ho Yow said: *' Such traffic as is carried on here in 
Christian America, in China is punishable by decapitation." 

The first Chinese Christian Home in Methodism was that of Jin Ho. 
One day, in 1871 , Dr. Gibson was informed by the police that a poor 
Chinese woman had asked to see a ** Jesus man." Tired of life, she 
had cast off the gaudy ornaments of her unholy calling, and putting on 
an old garment had gone out at night and jumped into the bay. She 
was fished out by a Negro and later was taken to the rescue Home in 
Washington Street, by Dr. Gibson. There she was converted; later 
she married a Christian Chinese, and established a Christian Home. The 
lines of activity brought over as Oriental work from the Missionary 
Society of the Pacific Coast were rescue work connected with the Chinese 
and the Japanese Homes for unemployed girls, teaching children in the 
Chinese Home, and house to house visitation. 

The rescue work of the Chinese and Japanese girls had all the thrills 
of a perilous and exacting chase. It involved grave personal danger. 
It required brave, clear-headed, strong women to venture down alleys 
and slums of Chinatown where hard-looking ** * white men' were drunk 
with Chinatown whisky, to enter homes where slaves, or worse, with 
chalked faces, gaudy silks, and bejewelled head-dresses sang lewd songs 
and Chinamen played mora and drank sam-shu." But the greatest 
bravery was shown by girls from the Home who would help raid the 
very homes they came from in order to save others. Between 1 868 and 
1 899, four hundred women were rescued, valued by their owners at 
$1,000,000. Some returned to China, many married, others scattered 
all along the coast from Washington to San Diego and as far east as 
Lynn, Mass. 

The missionaries from the Home; did not go at this work at random. 
There were definite ways of learning what was going on, and of going 
about a rescue. Sometimes girls did as Yoke Ying. She told a friendly 
policeman her troubles, and shov^^ed the results of cruel abuse, and 
knowledge of her situation was passed on to the workers at the Home. 
Again, the girls would appeal to the rescue Home for protection. In a 
fishing town one hundred miles from San Francisco lived a girl who had 

[102] 



been sold to a man for his wife, only to find herself a slave. She 
attempted to run away, but was offered twice for sale. Then she 
appealed to the rescue Home. The missionary found her, and both 
women ran for the Home. 

The way by which detection of a slave was eluded is seen in the 
experience of a fifteen-year-old girl. She had been sold to a Japanese 
creditor for twenty-five dollars. The owner had agreed to give her a 
musical education. He failed in his promise and the girl complained 
about it. He said that he would send her back to her father, and put 
her on a vessel supposedly for China. She was sent instead to Seattle, 
then to San Francisco, and through to Los Angeles, where she finally 
ended her trip in a questionable restaurant. While toihng there until 
three in the morning she was noticed by a Japanese who took her to the 
Woman's Heme Missionary Society, and they put her in the Home at 
San Francisco. The attempt of Bo Que to escape from slavery and 
marry a man of a rival family brought on the bitterest Tong war in 
recent years. She finally married the man of her choice. 

The missionary at the Oriental Home heard of a girl in a notorious 
resort and with proper police protection made a raid on the place. When 
the door opened there was a scurrying for hiding-places. The missionary, 
with a knowledge of conditions, hurried through trap-doors and under- 
ground passages till the girl was found. She made a show of resistance. 
She was very beautiful and had been sold for a very large sum. A court 
trial followed and in the end the girl was given to the missionaries. 
Another was bought in China by an old cigar-maker and brought to this 
country when nine years old. She was a slave. Both girl and business 
was sold and the man left for China. Once again the girl was sold, this 
time to an old Chinaman in Watsonville, and was about to be delivered 
to her new master. Her baby was left at a hospital door. The mis- 
sionary learned her story and decided to rescue her. The girl followed 
the policeman and missionary. A crowd of Chinamen followed them 
protesting, but hardly daring to interfere. Finally, much relieved, the 
little party got away in a cart. For two weeks the girl was in a daze. 
Then she began to understand, and grow happy. 

The poor slaves were not always wilHng to be rescued. Nor did 
they always relish being fitted into a new system. One little lame girl, 

[103] 



Ah Gum, a doorkeeper at the house of her master, beat with her little 
crutch the policeman who rescued her. She had been told that * 'Gibson 
House*' was open to entrap girls, where they had to work hard and had 
nothing to eat. Yoke Ying cried when she saw them sewing for her, 
because she did not want to wear English garments. For five months 
after the Home was open, women looked shyly at it before running to 
it for protection. But they found comfort and happiness and a Saviour 
through the open door. A few, alas! grew tired of the Home and 
eluding locks, bars and care, returned to bad husbands or a slave's life. 
No matter where they came from or how little time they spent there, 
the girls in the rescue Home were told the Gospel story. 

It was customary to visit steamers arriving from the Orient. At this 
time as many as two hundred Japanese women were sent to the United 
States yearly under false pretense. Skill in reading situations was a 
great asset of the missionary. It was strenuous work and more than 
one trip to a steamer was often needed. The interpreter would 
talk to girls and women when there was a suspicion of irregularity. 
Often, when entirely baffled, he would call in the missionary. Three 
classes traveled as steerage passengers: 1. The true family; 2. Those 
duped into pretending marriage in order to receive rich husbands ; 3. The 
willing comers who knew that they had sold their lives. All might have 
legal papers without a flaw, which would pass Government inspection. 
It was known to Government officials and the Society workers that no 
family girl ever came alone. The watchers also could detect costumes 
that would indicate the class to which they belonged. Sometimes the 
girls would confess. Again others would not, and if their papers were 
correct, they had to be landed, even though the officers were sure they 
were not what they pretended to be. Many times the girls were fol- 
lowed straight to a slave den. A regular raid under police protection 
was the only solution for a rescue in such a case, unless the girl herself 
later sought refuge in the Home. Some detected ones were sent back 
to China only to have the same thing happen again. Others returned 
to their native land and never let people know what had happened. 

It could not be expected that women could befriend runaway slaves, 
snatch them from homes or carry them away from dens of vice without 
coming up against angry slave owners, unscrupulous lawyers and legal 

[104] 



proceedings. On the whole the courts were the scenes of settlements of 
all rescued cases. When they rescued babies the missionary would ask 
the court to grant her guardianship papers for the child. The courts 
would give the child to the Home for protection till the case was settled. 
In one case a ten months' old baby was sold and given to the missionary 
for protection. It went out of the Home after the suit was settled and 
was back again for protection before it was three years old. The slave 
owners would start habeas corpus proceedings. In this way six rescued 
women out of twenty-nine were lost to the rescuers in one year. Again, 
a small fine of $50 did not worry the owners of a beautiful $3,000 slave. 
The Omaha Exposition gave great trouble to the people who were 
interested in this rescue work. 0\it of fifty different women in the 
Oriental Home, ten of them were sent there for a few weeks on the way 
back from the Exposition. By arrangement with the United States Gov- 
ernment they were all to go back to China at the close of the Exposition, 
but by some * 'chicanery known only to the bad Chinese men and to 
still worse white men" they were lost in transit. The variety of ways of 
getting around the law seemed to be as many as their wicked deeds. A 
woman would want to go back to China and pretended creditors would 
loom up to prevent her. She would be taken into the Home till adjust- 
ments were made and protected till safe on the steamer. A girl fled to 
the Home from her owner. The next day a newspaper came out 
with ''Kidnapped! The beautiful daughter of Loie Yick Riuy. One 
hundred dollars reward for return." When confronted in court the case 
was settled and the girl sent to the Home. 

Never was there a time when there were not one or more inmates 
sent to the Home by Federal authorities for protection. They had to 
be guarded by lock and bars till such a time as the courts decided to 
land or deport them. In the winter of 1 900-01 , agitation against slavery 
in Chinatown resulted in the arrest of fifteen girls. Federal officers 
placed them in the Methodist and Presbyterian Homes and paid the 
Home twelve dollars a month board for each girl. It was quite a task 
to protect these girls. Two outside doors had to be kept fast. Unprm- 
cipled lawyers employed by the owners would obtain permits for them 
to visit their supposed wives, and men would come daily to talk with 
the girls. This made it necessary for one of the Home girls and ore 
of the workers to be present to listen to all conversation so that no plans 

1105] 



of escape could be concocted. Girls were taken from the Home on 
writs of habeas corpus by men under bonds of $3,000 each, yet these 
large bonds would be forfeited rather than produce the girls in court. 
Again it was unsafe for young girls to come into contact with these women 
in the schools and meetings. Finally it was evident that the two kinds 
of work should not be done together. 

Another arrangement which admitted of much fraud was the **picture 
marriages" practiced freely among the Japanese. Large numbers of 
brides would come to America to meet proxy husbands. Although by 
Japanese custom their marriage by exchange of photographs was valid, 
it was not legal marriage over here. Therefore, women were turned 
over by immigrant officers to the Oriental Home till a marriage could 
be arranged according to American law. Sometimes as many as fifty 
marriages would take place at the Home in a year, so that some wag 
dubbed the rescue Home of the Woman's Home Missionary Society a 
matrimonial bureau. The Society, however, was true to its mission, 
that of home-making, and the Oriental girls were started right. In 
1900, years of work did not seem to have made much impression on 
this dreadful condition, yet six hundred women had been helped since 
Jin Ho was rescued from a watery grave. 

The rescue work was preventive work and its most important phase 
was the rescue of little girls. Boys also v/ere taken into the Home at 
times while waiting for their cases to be settled. This was done that 
they might be kept from confinement with criminals in county jails. Yet 
in summing up the entire situation, the Secretary for Oriental Work in 
1900 stated that '*the army of custom house officials, immigrant officers, 
the laws of the land, the whole power of the United Christian sentiment 
backed by the moral sentiment of the entire community had thus far been 
but a portiere of cobwebs across the Golden Gate so far as excluding 
the yellow- faced slaves is concerned." 

The rescuing of Oriental girls, if more dramatic, was no braver than 
the house to house visitation of the faithful missionary and the interpreter. 
Down crov/ded Chinatown alleys, up rickety stairs, through dark halls, 
over floors grimed with dirt of years, past birds, parrots, chickens, 
monkeys and children they made their way up to small, sunless rooms 
where women sewed day by day. They heard crying babies, moans of 

[106] 



the sick, curses, and men and women running from **the foreign devils." 
But the Woman's Home Missionary Society was convinced that '*hea- 
thenism in America can never be conquered until its homes are taken 
for Christ," so its missionaries sought the shut-ins, who, because of rigid 
custom, could not gather together in a public meeting or religious service. 
*'Every call to a Chinese Home meant a separate and distinct congrega- 
tion." Early workers read from the Bible in colloquial Cantonese. They 
read simple Bible stories, '*The Sweet Story of the Cross," and *'Peep 
of Day." Simple as they were, these stories had to be read over and 
over again and explained until the women understood them. The friendly 
visitor also taught the women lovely Christian songs. She comforted 
the sick and even prepared the dead for burial. By 1 903 a missionary 
speaking the Chinese language had entrance to seven hundred families 
in Chinatown. 

A Chinese Sunday-school was started in the squalor of Chinatown 
in I 898. Each Sunday scores of men, a few women and lots of chil- 
dren came. Its best worker, Oi Yoki, a gifted interpreter of wonderful 
eloquence, had been a slave girl years before. The mothers did not seem 
unwilling to have their children go to Sunday-school or day school, but 
were far too indolent to look after them. So the missionary would often 
go after the delinquent ones, for it was through the children that the 
mothers could be reached. 

In 1 898 hardly a Chinese child was to be seen in America. Fifteen 
years later there were 2,000 in San Francisco. '* Little urchins in yellow 
blouses, born under the Stars and Stripes, who could laugh at Con- 
gressional legislation and closed and barred gates." They were citizens 
of the United States and would be voters when of age. The question 
arose, ''Shall these voters be Christian or pagan?" Across the vision 
of the Woman's Home Missionary Society flamed the solemn words, 
*'A heathen voter in Christian America is a monstrosity," and the women 
said to one another, "We must establish schools in our Homes for Orien- 
tal children here in San Francisco, along the Pacific coast, even unto 
Hawaii." True, there were separate schools for the Mongolians, but 
only ten per cent, were accommodated. The Society considered asking 
the Board of Education to have a truant officer look after those not in 
school. But if all the youthful Celestials had been forced into school, 

[107] 



the schools would have been swamped for lack of room. The school 
buildings were located far away from the Oriental Home, which made 
it hard for the girls. They were in danger of being kidnapped, espe- 
cially those who were escaped slaves. Kindergartens, too, were essential, 
for small children from Chinese families in the neighborhood who were 
not old enough to go to school and who did not understand English. 
TTie rescue work was very important, and house to house visitation very 
exacting, but lack of school facilities made it imperative that the children 
about the mission should have religious and secular teaching. 

Oriental Home — ^As the rescue work came into the hands of 
better and more conscientious officials of the immigrant station, and doors 
were opened more frequently to importuning missionaries, the attention 
of the Society was called more and more toward educational work. The 
early school passed along to the Oriental Home had been conducted for 
two sets of pupils, those resident in the Home, and the neighbors. 
The missionary taught English and Chinese in the morning of each day, 
and made house to house visits in the afternoon. Later, as classes 
enlarged, English was taught mornings and Chinese in the afternoons. 
Kindergartens were established with little chairs so fascinating to the 
Chinese children, and with sand-tables deep and wide. They were an 
astonishing success. The older girls in the Home helped with the music 
and acted as interpreters, and before long the Oriental Home had the 
largest kindergarten in San Francisco. 

In 1902, pubhc schools for three months were conducted in the 
Home for three hours a day, at no expense to the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society. This was a volunteer movement from the school authori- 
ties ; they furnished the teachers and the Society furnished the place. The 
same year, by invitation of the Park Commissioner, all kindergartens in 
San Francisco were given one day in Golden Gate Park. The Chinese 
kindergartens of the Society were invited. The superintendent of the 
children's playground was a bit anxious about the Chinese children, but 
they behaved so well that they were invited to come again. The kinder- 
gartens were always full. More girls and women sought an education, 
showing a breaking away from old tradition. Two girls from China 
were placed in the Home while in America. The Chinese interpreter 
at Angel Island sent his daughter to the Home for training. 

[108] 



The Society passed on to the opening of the primary and grammar 
schools for Oriental pupils. The public high school was open to them 
in 1906, but such privilege was useless without undergraduate prepara- 
tion. The students were very bright, from one little child who at six 
years could read the ten commandments and the twenty-third psalm in 
her own language, to Joseph, who went to the University of California 
through a scholarship to prepare for a medical course. 

In 1 904 two girls, Caroline Lee and Ali Lin, took part in a Chinese 
oratorical contest before all the Chinese dignitaries of San Francisco. 
They were the only girls among eleven contestants. Caroline Lee won 
second prize and Ali Lin received honorable mention. It was contrary 
to Chinese custom for girls to take part in public affairs and especially 
on an equality with men. But the girls were so bright and so well 
trained that the affair gave the Home and school prestige among the best 
Chinese people. Surely education was the great lever to lift the secretive 
Oriental from his Old World habits. 

Chinese Kfe in America began to change rapidly by 1913. Chinese 
girls could appear in public declamation with approval of their country- 
men; women could gather in schools to study English and religion; the 
queue was seen only occasionally on a few old men, and Joss houses 
were not visited so generally for worship, but were becoming largely 
show places for tourists. The Oriental Home, completed by the Society 
in 1901, was the scene of activity for the three lines of work taken over 
from the Chinese and Japanese Homes of the Missionary Society of the 
Pacific Coast. It was a two-story brick house, semi-Spanish style, on 
the northwest corner of Washington and Trenton streets, and stood oppo- 
site the Chinese Mission house of the Methodist Episcopal Church, where 
rescue work had been carried on for thirty years. It had large parlors, 
dining rooms, dormitories, sick room, small parlors, a sunny schoolroom 
and kindergarten. It was a proud year for the Home when eight hun- 
dred visitors registered in the guest book. They came from every state 
in the Union as well as from Canada, Honolulu, Japan, China, England 
and New Zealand. Some were very curious. Others were surprised 
that Chinese women or children could learn English. All were enthusi- 
astic over the Home, its fine equipment and wonderful work. Visions 
of future growth led the Society to plan for spacious additions, when 

[109] 



the earthquake visited the great city, opening up living sepulchres and 
opium dens of Chinatown to the blue heavens, destroying the pest-holes 
of sin along with splendid buildings, monuments and churches. In 
twenty-four hours the beautiful Oriental Home of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society, the work of years, was gone. Teachers and mis- 
sionaries who had rescued so many girls from a living death were hard 
put to it to rescue themselves from falling stone, fire and the fiendish 
dangers that threatened the unprotected. As their building was rocking 
and crumbling to pieces they and their charges took refuge in the old 
mission house across the street, where they spent the day. In the evening 
they went to the home of Mrs. L. P. Williams and passed the night 
there. Early Friday morning they started on the long walk to the ferry, 
reaching Berkeley at four in the afternoon, tired and hungry, but safe. 
The children were kept in the homes of Americans until a home at 2 1 1 6 
Spaulding Avenue, Berkeley, Cal., was secured. Days of house-hunting, 
furnishing and standing in the bread-line followed the calamity. Kinder- 
garten children were located at Oakland, where friends and teachers 
worked constantly to supply food and clothes. The primary grades were 
kept up to a standard at the Berkeley Home, while two girls entered 
grammar grade and two entered Berkeley High School. One entered a 
San Francisco normal school preparatory to teaching in the Oriental 
schools in the city. Steamer work, too, was very urgent, and the plucky 
missionaries never failed. Even though a better house was soon found for 
the Home at Berkeley, lack of room and facilities made the rescue work 
impossible and the Methodists turned all such cases over to the Presbyte- 
rian Rescue Home, but not before three little girls sold because of 
poverty were rescued. 

Chinatown in San Francisco built up so rapidly that the Society was 
anxious to reopen its Home there. Delay in rebuilding the Oriental Home 
at Washington Street, San Francisco, was due to trouble with the deeds 
of the property. After the fire and earthquake, when all the records 
were burned, the law required every property holder to re-establish titles 
to his property. This meant a delay of from four months to a year. A 
second obstacle was the delay in getting an additional fifty feet of land 
from the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. This prop- 
erty adjustment between the Woman's Home Missionary Society and the 

[110] 



Board was in the fifty feet lying east of and contiguous t^ the property in 
Washington Street, in Heu of the Society's equity in the x>ld Mission 
House. No contractor would take the work till he knew wkere the 
money was coming from, nor would banks or individuals loan money until 
titles were clear. From 1907 to 1910 the Society had to wait patiently 
for a settlement of all these vexing but necessary points. In 1911 the 
new Home was a reality with a ninety feet frontage on Washington 
Street. It was handsome and substantial-looking, a marvel of convenience 
and equipped for various kinds of work. Once more the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society demonstrated its policy towards disaster. When a 
home or school went down to destruction a better one arose from the 
ruins. By 1920 the house was fully paid for. 

Ellen Stark Ford Home — The Oriental Home was the centre 
for both nationalities, — Chinese and Japanese, — until 1906-07, when 
the Ellen Stark Ford Industrial Home for Japanese and Korean Women 
and Children was opened at 2025 Pine Street. Weddings were so 
numerous at this house that it, too, could be famous as a **marriage 
bureau." The first mention in the Society's records of Korean women 
is in 1903, when two Korean women and one child made their appear- 
ance. They could understand neither English or Chinese and were hard 
to deal with. At that time sixty Koreans were said to be in San Fran- 
cisco, a prey to the worst class of Chinese! A decrease in the number 
of Japanese women began at this time, owing to the exclusion law barring 
Japanese laborers from Hawaii. Four years of industrial labor in the 
Ellen Stark Ford Home was very gratifying. They had seven babies too 
young to walk, fourteen children under nine years, while the oldest girl 
was attending the McDowell School for Dressmaking. They had a 
kindergarten for the little tots, a school in the Japanese language in the 
Home, and a class in the Korean language. With the immigrant station 
at Angel Island there was no need of steamer work. Whatever was 
essential was handled by the deaconesses of the Society, who alone were 
in touch with the people at Angel Island. An addition was built to the 
Ellen Stark Ford Home in 1909. In 1911 the California State Board 
of Charities, regulating all institutions, would allow no more than forty- 
six children in the Japanese Home in San Francisco. Two other Homes 
for Japanese on the Pacific coast are at Los Angeles, California, and 
Seattle, Washington. 



Jane Co^ch Memorial Home — ^A missionary deaconess was 
working in L-os Angeles in 1 903, and the Jane Couch Memorial Home, 
a gift w the Society, was used by the Bible women and missionaries for 
their home. TTiey had to conduct their kindergartens, day nurseries and 
sewing classes in the far parts of the city. In 1915 the Home was 
rented and an attempt was made to use two flats nearer the wholesale 
district in order to reach more children. This plan was soon given up 
and the Jane Couch Memorial Home was once more open to the Japan- 
ese women and children of Southern California. 

Katherine Blaine Home — This Home, at Seattle, Wash., was 
purchased in 1911 with $ 1 ,000 raised by Seattle women and $ 1 ,000 
from the General Society. The women had used their last dollar in 
buying their Home, so they cleaned and papered it themselves. They 
gathered furnitures from the homes of local people. The kindergarten 
at the Katherine Blaine Home has been its distinguishing feature, but 
cooking classes and sewing classes for Japanese mothers have been very 
successful. The Oriental bureau has opened up new work from time to 
time at Los Angeles, Sacramento, Oakland, San Diego, and little towns 
along the Pacific coast as an urgent call came to them, or when a chance 
to make an effective attack on heathenism seemed opportune. 

From 1 895 to 1 900 it was evident to those studying conditions along 
the Pacific coast that the greatest work for Japanese women and children 
was logically where the greatest number were congregating, — in San 
Francisco and the Hawaiian Islands. The earlier work of the Oriental 
bureau had dealt more with Chinese than Japanese, though a Japanese 
lodging house for unemployed girls had been kept at the same time as 
the early rescue mission house. This was closed when the bureau built 
its own Oriental Home on Washington Street. In January, 1899, a 
Japanese woman, Mrs. Takahashi, began work among her own people 
at Honolulu. A conservative estimate at that time placed the number of 
Japanese and Korean women in Hawaii as 1 0,000. They were living 
in huts out on plantations, with no comforts other than the barest Japa- 
nese necessities of life demanded. They were victims of cruel abuse 
and drudging labor. Many were forced to lead immoral lives to support 
their husbands. All were the absolute property of fathers or husbands. 

[112] 




Korean 
sisters 
from 



Ellen Stark Ford Home, 
San Francisco, Cal. In 
training for nurse and 
missionary service to 
their own people 




When they went into the fields they were forced to leave their young 
children to play about unprotected, and to grow up on a plane with the 
cats, dogs, monkeys and chickens. There were five hundred children of 
kindergarten age in the vicinity where the missionaries worked. Very 
early they learned the vices of their parents. Here, too, little children 
were sold for debt. In religion these women were Buddhists or Shintoists. 
They were addicted to drinking and were confirmed gamblers. 

The year following, a call for help from the brave little Home mis- 
sionary in this place was answered by a Woman's Home Missionary 
Society deaconess. The Chinese and Japanese possessions had been 
burned by order of the Government in an effort to stamp out the plague, 
and for a time seven hundred Japanese women lived in a drill shed. For 
two months the deaconess and two Japanese missionaries stood by these 
poor women. After the detention period was over a Sunday-school was 
organized. The needs for Honolulu were reported as follows: A home 
for the workers, a room for day school and sewing classes, and separate 
barracks or dormitories for working women in the same compound. It 
was not the desire to Americanize the Japanese women, but to help them 
live up to the best Japanese possibilities. In 1901-02 a house was 
secured and named the Susannah Wesley Home. Many had to be barred 
from the Home, however, since they could only receive those for whom 
$5.80 a month was provided. Often the tender-hearted missionaries 
would use money of their own in an unselfish effort to help as many of 
their people as possible. It was only too evident that more money and 
more missionaries were needed for the Methodist Episcopal Church 
and seven stations where the work should have been supplemented by 
the Bible women of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. Yet 
they were forced to write, **We are losing our efficient Bible women! 

At this time the Japanese work in Hawaii was separated from the 
Oriental Bureau and placed with the Hawaiian Committee. A visit 
from Bishop J. W. Hamilton in 1905 resulted in some wise changes. 
He found the Home in an unhealthy locality, and assisted the women in 
getting a new location. Through these efforts a fine property was 
secured. It consisted of three houses with fifty rooms, well adapted for 
the rescue home, children's home and woman's home. These houses soon 

[113] 



filled up. Within three years there were thirty-one children, forty-five 
women and twenty-eight women refugees in the Susannah Wesley Home. 
A gift of $5,000 came to the Home from the President of the Bank of 
Hawaii. People of Honolulu recognized the value of the work. In 
1918, during the visit of the Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. M. L. 
Woodruff, and the Bureau Secretary, Mrs. W. E. Evans, a new prop- 
erty was purchased for the Susannah Wesley Home. The location is 
ideal ; the house, though small, is in good repair. A small building was 
moved near and put in condition for some of the children to occupy until 
after the World War. Hopes and plans are well under way for a fine 
new building for the Home. Federation and co-operation were much 
needed on the Pacific coast. Early in the spring of 1911 a meeting 
was called of representatives of every Board carrying on work among 
Orientals there, and after two meetings a permanent committee was formed 
with mem.bers named by the respective Boards. The object in organiz- 
ing thus was to avoid duplicating work by different denominations, to 
unite small missions into one strong one, and to avoid waste of money 
and effort. The agreement was made that no new work, especially in 
country towns, should be established without the approval of this com- 
mittee. San Francisco had work for all who were willing to undertake it. 



[114] 



Wayside Stations In Alaska 



Alaskan Mission Stations 



Name Location 

Jesse Lee Unalaska, Alaska 

Lavinia Wallace Young Nome, Alaska 

Hilah Seward Sinuk, Alaska 



[nei 



VII 
WAYSIDE STATIONS IN ALASKA 

V V •3P 

THE Woman's Home Missionary Society supplemented church work 
in the South with industrial Homes ; it worked side by side with the 
church in Utah building churches, organizing Sunday-schools and estab- 
lishing missions. But in Alaska the Society preceded the church by ten 
years, venturing into an unknown region, selecting the most strategic 
location for a mission,; actually breaking virgin sod with a plow that 
Christian civilization might flourish in that neglected outpost of an indif- 
ferent nation. 

There were not many people in Alaska. It was not densely crowded 
with a heathen population, as many foreign countries were. This paucity 
of peoples was due to the lack of education. They had no knowledge 
of medicinal herbs or healing clay like the American Indians. No innate 
sense or experience had given them skill to protect their race. Without 
medicine or doctors they readily succumbed to epidemics and disease. 

The Society first came into touch with Alaska's need in 1886, 
through Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Government agent for Education in 
Alaska. Dr. Jackson was desirous of having the children of the most 
advanced people there sent to the United States for medical training, and 
wanted the Woman's Home Missionary Society to establish an industrial 
and training school in Alaska to provide the early education which neces- 
sarily must precede the medical. Not all the natives were uncivilized. 
The Aleuts were a capable and deserving people, superior to the other 
natives of the section. Years before they had come under the influence 
of the Greek Catholic Church and the Russian Fur Company. They 
were of good stock, of Japanese origin, and made the best navigators, 
traders and accountants. They respected marriage and had in their 
homes cookstoves, granite ware and crockery. Birka, on the island of 
Spirkin, was noted for its cleanliness, where the Aleuts had white- 
scrubbed and sanded floors, clean windows and neat bedding. 

[117] 



One week after the United States flag was raised at Sitka, along 
with other vices that claimed its protection, were two saloons and two 
ten-pin alleys. At another time a whole tribe of people were in danger 
of starvation because they had sold their winter supplies in exchange for 
whisky, and summer was past. Among the wild tribes were their special 
vices and heathenisms, — such as witchcraft, polygamy, exchange of 
wives and infanticide. The Aleuts had proved, however, that the natives 
were capable of civilization. 

No sooner had the Society accepted the call to Alaskan work than 
it began to **lay lines in different directions" for entering upon the definite 
task. Travelers from; the United States had begun to **view Alaska." 
They were amazed at the inexhaustible supplies of fish on the shores of 
the new territory ; gold and silver had been discovered. There was need 
of hurrying to Alaska before the vices of civilization got there. Further- 
more, Dr. Jackson had promised one hundred and sixty acres of land at 
Unalaska for the Society's mission station and arranged to appoint a man 
to the place so that the women need send and support the wife only. 
But first come, first served. Delay might destroy the opportunity. 

While chafing under the inaction of the Government and irregular 
mails, the women asked the Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church to send a missionary, promising that, as in other instances, 
the Woman's Society would send the wife to care for the women's work. 

Natives of Unga had built a school house at that place and a teacher 
had been selected by the Bureau of the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, to be sent by the Alaska Board of Education. Since the laws 
of the United States were not regarded with much awe in Alaska, it was 
neither wise nor prudent to send any one without the protection of the 
Government or the church. Interest in Alaska was fanned by the 
announcement that the most western station would be called the Jesse 
Lee Memorial Home and Industrial School, after the pioneer Methodist, 
who through courage and perseverance had planted Methodism in the 
extreme northwest of the country. Subscription blocks were issued and 
shares in the Home were sold for fifty cents a share. Forty shares were 
taken by Chinese, some in Chicago, others in Boston. 

While the women *Vere practicing the patience of Job," a book by 
Dr. Jackson on Alaska had touched people's sympathy, and money 

[118] 



came in from all over the country. One woman sent a dollar which she 
had saved for twenty-five years as a memorial of a brother fallen in war. 
Twelve dollars and fifty cents came from the sale of stones from a little 
farm, A club of boys called "Alaska Boys" earned money for a door 
to the new school. Some girls paid for a room. Two children sold a 
pet lamb and sent in their money. Desks were given, also a sewing 
machine. One man promised an Estey organ when a chapel was built, 
and $1,000 came in to name the little house of worship the Eliza Jane 
Baker Chapel. Timber for the Home, furnishings and all supplies had 
to be shipped to Unalaska. These supplies and shipments were to be 
attended to by Methodist friends in San Francisco. 

In 1 889 the Society announced **Our Caleb and Joshua have taken 
the promised land." The Government appointments had come and two 
men had set out, even though no home had as yet been provided for 
them. Prof. J. A. Tuck went to Unalaska, Rev. J. H. Carr to Unga. 

The first Home filled up in three weeks with the child aristocrats of 
the place, one-half of whom were the grandchildren of the former Greek 
priest. Feeling just then was running high against the priests, and the 
missionaries were inclined to believe that the many delays had, after all, 
brought them to Alaska at a providential moment. In August, 1 890, 
lumber for the Martha Ellen Stevens Cottage at Unga arrived in Un- 
alaska. It was no sooner put up than orphans were packed in like 
sardines in a box. Whether the population was scanty or not, there 
were children aplenty in need of every kind of devotion. The Secretary 
of the Bureau accepted the offer of a free trip to Alaska and left in July 
to look the ground over. Her experiences are a valuable record of the 
pathos and humor of the struggle to do the Lord's work in a new land 
and under almost insurmountable difficulties. The account runs in part 
as follows: ! 

**The first greeting of the country was in the eruption of its most 
active volcano. A few hours later I was seated in dilapidated Jesse Lee 
Home, surrounded by fifteen girls. This school was to be a Government 
school, so had the great sanction of the Bishop. I had to sit and see the 
Bishop go through ceremonies in gold-embroidered satin robes. His 
assistant read from the Bible, played charmingly on our Hamilton organ 
and sweetly sang our Gospel hymns. A dissolute mother meanwhile 

[119] 



was trying to induce her fourteen-year-old daughter to run away, bul 
the Bishop said she must stay until she was eighteen, and she obeyed. 
When they came they were like wild things with wicked little faces, bul 
now Parsha, aged six; Tatiana, nineteen; and Parsacovia, all are learn- 
ing to cook and sew and play and sing and hear Bible teachings. Once 
their homes were holes in the ground, now they are in a safe place, yet 
human wolves from whaleships and war vessels come and gaze in the 
windows or try to talk through cracks and knot-holes in the fence.** 

A $1 2,000 appropriation for Unalaska was next asked for. Before 
the completion of the contract for Jesse Lee Home in 1892, General 
Conference closed the work in Alaska. This was harder to face than 
delay had been. Since the Woman'sj Home Missionary Society was 
under the constitutional obligation to submit its fields of labor and plan 
of work for the approval of the General Missionary Committee, they 
presented the plans and facts of the Alaska case as follows: The 
Woman's Home Missionary Society has two contracts for schools in 
Alaska, one at Unga, one at Unalaska, and has spent $8,000 in build- 
ings and school supplies. The plans were based on promises of the 
Government, when General Conference ruled against such co-operation 
and the Society was informed that it could not renew its contract. This 
action on the part of General Conference was final. Because of wide- 
spread interest in this work, a great many people would be disappointed 
if the work ceased. There were several thousand dollars in the treasury 
for the work. The Society could also appropriate a reasonable amount. 
It was respectfully suggested that the places where the Society's missions 
were located could be attached to the Puget Sound Conference. It was 
pointed out that while the population was small, yet the location was 
strategic. It was an important post, frequented by vessels as they plied 
along the northern coast, and the natural outfitting station between the 
Pacific and the Arctic oceans. Both at Unga and Unalaska the Society 
had a dwelling, chapel and a small school house. When the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society went into Alaska it was under the impression 
that the Aleutian Islands had been assigned to the church in fraternal 
conference and that the Society was carrying out the wishes of the church. 

The reply to this presentation was that though the commitee appre- 
ciated the work which the women had done, still in view of the small 

[120] 



population and the presence of other denominations the church could not 
establish a mission there and the Society was advised to drop the work. 
They were told, meanwhile, that the Government would go on with the 
school. The money unexpended was held until the meeting of the Board 
of Managers, and the women still hoped for a solution of the problem. 
There were supplies at Unalaska to last the year through, and it took a 
year for the corps of workers to receive the news. When word did reach 
them, they had twenty-five girls in the school and dared not turn them 
out to be the prey of bad men. So they wrote to their own friends in 
Maine, who sent them money to go on with the work. Finally the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society decided to continue with the work 
somehow, with the approval of the Board, and laid upon Mrs. Rust and 
Mrs. Fisk the task of opening the path to Alaska missions. The Gen- 
eral Executive Committee also appointed a new committee for Alaska, 
with instructions to take beneficiaries only, at $50 each. The Committee 
on Education said that the public schools in Alaska could not go on 
without the co-operation of a Home. So the women were directed to 
leave the furnishing of teacher and school supplies to the Government and 
to go on with the Home at Unalaska. This decision allowed the work 
to go on under the requirements of church rules. It also laid a heavier 
duty upon the entire constituency, since more beneficiaries must be pro- 
vided for. 

The revenue cutter would gather up children in the North and take 
them to Jesse Lee Home. In 1 890 they brought ten orphans from St. 
Paul's Island and could have brought thirty more. It was possible to 
gather one hundred children] for the Home. Adlooat, asked why he 
came, replied, **To learn about God plenty." The difficulties of the 
missionaries were many, — chief of which were crowded rooms, limited 
means, immorality among the natives and sailors, want of sympathy among 
business men. They were always overtaxed. From the very beginning 
it was evident that a medical missionary was a necessity. 

In 1 896 the new Government school building was finished and also 
the new Jesse Lee Home, a strong, substantial building two stories high 
with an attic. The builders assured the missionaries that itj was well 
built. Hardly had the carpenters put out to sea before a terrific wind- 
storm destroyed the school building and wrecked the Home sd that it 

[ 121 ] 



was unsafe. It took some time to have it repaired. Because of severe 
northern storms they were obHged to shingle the north side of all buildings 
over the weather boarding and set the windows in lead ; even the hennery 
had to be built double and kept warm. 

1 he Government teachers proved to be very good and were a great 
help. Before long, results of the work were seen in the advancement of 
the pupils. In all, nine were sent to Carhsle Indian School, one to 
Chicago, one to Mothers' Jewel Home, one to Hagamon, N. Y. Three 
went back to their people and two married. Others went to the United 
States with returning missionaries. 

Between 1905-06 the Government schools were closed. This was 
a heavy blow to Unalaska. The superintendent attempted to teach the 
children in the Home, but could take no others. He held half-day and 
evening sessions in the dining room of the Home. The only alternative 
would have been a teacher and the use of public school buildings. 
Although prohibition was supposed to be in force, liquor came to Alaska. 
Traders came in schooners with cargoes of whisky labeled catsup, Florida 
water, bay rum, pain killer, Jamaica ginger, rubber boots, onions, sugar 
and numberless other names, to avoid prohibitory laws. 

Another grave crisis was imminent. The white people were coming 
into the country. Natives were helpless before the whites, who absorbed 
the sealeries, fisheries, fur and deer industries. The missionaries saw 
that they must create industries to make the people self-supporting. Those 
possible were carpet-weaving, herding reindeer, shoe-making, and curing 
hay. The Commercial Company promised to give Jesse Lee boys pref- 
erence in the seal industries if well prepared. 

At this time one of the missionaries returned to the States and mar- 
ried Dr. Newhall, who returned to Alaska with his wife. This gave to 
the Home a teacher, physician, local preacher, and, above all, one of 
the finest, most faithful and versatile workers the Society ever had. There 
had long been a need for a small hospital at Unalaska, for the inmates 
of the Home, for the natives, and for travelers who passed through 
Unalaska on their way North. After a severe epidemic of measles 
during which thirty people died in the neighborhood because of lack of 
care, after sick passengers from the ships had been taken into a part of 
the Home for treatment, it was decided to start building a hospital on 

[122] 



the cottage plan. While plans were in the embryo stage, word came 
that the boat Homer was coming North with a marine hospital on board, 
and with workmen to set it up. It would take in everybody, and physi- 
cians and nurses were following on the next boat. This put the Society's 
plans aside for a time. But later the marine hospital was closed, 
physicians and nurses returning to the States. They had treated no one 
but marines. Dr. Newhall then went on with plans for the hospital. 

The Hospital at Unalaska — In 1 904 the boys' dormitory and 
hospital buildings were completed. The main part of the new building 
comprised the dormitory. The wings were used for hospital purposes. 
In the hospital was a girls' ward with four beds ; nurses' room, one bed ; 
tuberculosis room, one bed; boys' ward, four beds; a private room, one 
bed; drug room and dispensary, — a great success, considering the fact 
that everything in the building had to come from the States, even to the 
rubber treads on the stairs of the boys' dormitory. The dispensary was 
named the Eliza Kingsley Arter Dispensary. 

In all that northern territory there was no other hospital. Cases 
ranged from earache to tuberculosis. Miners, woodsmen, travelers, sail- 
ors and natives, all were often in desperate need of physical healing. Its 
educational value also could be enormous in this land, where natives 
washed a nev/-born babe, tightly bandaged it and hung it from the 
ceiling for forty days, while the mother went about her affairs within 
three days. During its first year the record stood two hundred and fifty- 
nine cases, six hundred and seventy-three treatments. 

Since the distance from the States was so great and the arrival of 
supplies uncertain, much had to be done by the Jesse Lee Home family 
to provide for the long, cold winters. The summer was a busy season. 
The Jesse Lee Home boat. The PerchmenU was used daily. Barrels and 
donation boxes were brought from Dutch Harbor to Unalaska, sea shells 
were gathered for use in raising poultry in winter; lumber for the boys' 
dormitory and hospital was brought over. Driftwood was gathered along 
the beach. A silo was built, grass was cut along the shores of surround- 
ing bays and towed home. They rowed to berry patches and went fishing. 
The boys rowed out the bay along the Bering Sea coast twenty-five miles 
to Visilo, where they caught with a seine, codfish, calaga, salmon, floun- 
ders, halibut, and salmon-trout. They gathered kelp for use as fertilizer 

[123] 



in the garden. They also cared for the cows, **Patience" and **Alaska." 
The girls helped preserve and dry berries, lay away a hundred dozen 
eggs, pack butter to supply the table, and dried and salted down ten 
barrels of salmon and herring. It was a thriftily managed ranch. 

Living conditions on the Aleutian Islands were bad by 1 908. Fox 
hunting and seal fishing had yielded its life blood to the greed of the 
early white pioneer. It was over with. It seemed that the Government 
introduction of industries alone could save the natives from pauperism. 
Their dwellings were unsanitary, due to driving fogs, frequent rains and 
the small amount of sunshine. Tuberculosis made terrible havoc. The 
lack of proper administration of law made bold the transgressors. The 
Government had provided schools, but had done nothing along industrial 
lines whereby the people might earn a livelihood. At one time rumors 
were heard of a plant for making fertilizer from whales' bodies on the 
Island of Akatan, but the project was not carried out. There was also 
some attempt to raise alfalfa. 

Alaska was like no other field. Problems shifted and changed, but 
like a leaden sinker the poverty of the natives was pulHng them down 
below the level of possible competition with the white people, who were 
seeking wealth in Alaska. It did not seem right that these people should 
be allowed to perish before the onrush of civilization. Given a chance, 
they showed surprising character, were versatile, with wide differentiation 
of tastes and talents. 

Another problem was what to do with the girls who graduated from 
Jesse Lee Home. At first they were sent to Carlisle Indian School, but 
no Alaskans were sent after 1902, for the superintendent wanted only 
full-blooded Indians, and the Aleuts of Japanese origin were not happy 
there. It seemed wise to keep them home to help with the others, and 
to train them there. Many white men who went to Alaska threw off all 
restraint and looked upon the native girls as their prey. A few were 
placed in safe homes in the United States. Some married and lived 
among their people. To accomplish lasting good, however, the solution 
of their problems had to be worked out on Alaskan soil. The teachers 
at Jesse Lee Home had long wanted their girls to learn basket-weaving, — 
the rare art of the Aleutian women. The native women holding to it as 

[124] 



a secret of their own, had refused to teach it to others. Not until 1 909 
did they finally get a woman to teach the girls their one exclusive art. 
A gifted woman of Unalaska taught them fancy work, which they sold 
later for quite a neat sum. 

The life of these people depended on the next ten years of service 
to them, so the missionaries labored on. In providing the Home and 
teaching the boys useful trades. Dr. Newhall had to be a fisherman 
with a knowledge of boats, traps, seines, salting, drying and smoking fish; 
a carpenter, painter and blacksmith; pumpman, physician, surgeon, vil- 
lage counsellor, farmer, lawyer and accountant. His wife was an expert 
in looking after sick babies, making blouses for twenty boys, darning 
stockings, drilling children and visiting in the village. And the army of 
Home mission workers in the United States industriously collected money, 
purchased and sent one hundred yards of wire fencing, croquet sets, tennis 
balls and racquets, blacksmith's outfit, turning lathe, heavy hardware, 
large vise, nine cases of heavy overshoes and rubbers, besides the usual 
supplies of foodstuffs and clothing. When supplies first started to Un- 
alaska the Commercial Company carried the freight very cheaply. In 
1 902 the company changed hands and no consideration was given the 
mission. The girls at Jesse Lee Home earned money from the sale of 
fancy work for the setting up of new gasoline pumping apparatus. 

In 1 9 1 7 all were saddened by the death of Mrs. Newhall, who had 
given her best years to the family at Unalaska. During the war, news 
from Alaska was very irregular. There was no regular mail boat. Tons 
of mail were stored up in old buildings at different stations within six or 
seven hundred miles of the mission station. The Society only heard occa- 
sionally from the Home through fishing boats or a coast guard steamer, 
or by wireless telegrams. All this, with the high cost of living, presented 
a serious problem for Alaska. So urgent had the situation become by 
1920 that the Society included this field in its special survey and recon- 
struction program. 

Lavinia Wallace Young Mission — After a very wonderful 
revival at Nome, a chapel was decided upon. Just then the Board of 
Home Missions and Church Extension passed resolutions that the church 
property at Nome (once used for white people) should be leased to the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society for one dollar a year, the Woman's 

[ 125 ] 



Home Missionary Society to keep said property in repair. Thus, on 
October 16, 1913, the Society came into the possession of a church and 
parsonage buildings. 

Nome was the Mecca of Alaskan Eskimos. One thousand came in 
during the winter. Five hundred remained in summer. In this day of 
establishing social settlements and Americanization centres, it may be a 
surprise to know that the Woman's Home Missionary Society in 1914 
built a large gymnasium for athletic meets on a plot of ground in Nome, 
Alaska, known as the Sandpit. 

Missionaries on furlough began soliciting money for this enterprise. 
They planned the building large enough for the natives to gather there 
for reports from reindeer and dog races held every winter, instead of at 
saloons. When finished the gymnasium had in addition a storeroom, 
housekeeping rooms, and a gallery for spectators at meets, etc. 

Next, the workshop grew too small. They had to use a missionary's 
room for sewing, knitting classes and dressmaking. So the business men 
of Nome presented a workshop to the mission. Across the happy accounts 
of success came the sad news that the New Jersey had been lost in a 
storm at sea with all on board. No one ever knew how it happened. 
The great event of 1 9 1 6 was the arrival of the new boat. Jewel Guard, 
a gift from the Home Guards and Mothers' Jewels of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society. 

The year 1917 saw the opening of the Maynard-Columbus Hospital 
at Nome in connection with the mission. This was made possible through 
a gift by Mr. Horace Maynard of Columbus, Ohio. Between 1913-18 
the Society at Nome secured for the mission five buildings, a church, 
parsonage, gymnasium, workshop and hospital. Surely God blesses the 
work in difficult places. The Eskimos love their church and crowd it to 
the doors, especially at Christmas and Easter time, when they come long 
distances on their dog-sleds. 

At Nome, in 1919, one hundred and eighty-eight Eskimos died of 
influenza. As a result of this disaster eighty-nine orphans were taken 
into the mission. The large gymnasium was converted into an emergency 
orphanage, and teachers of Sinuk and Nome worked together in heroic 
effort to carry on the work under heart-rending; conditions. 

[1261 



HiLAH Seward Home — When the Society sent its first missionaries 
to Unalaska to labor among the Aleuts, people could reasonably have 
felt that they had gone as far north as possible. But during the years 
that Jesse Lee Home was aiding the Aleuts' in their pathetic struggle to 
keep a grip on life, Alaska developed marvelously. Towns became 
permanent, schools were established, sulphur mines ten miles away, at 
Mount Makustia, and quartz mines five miles away, were opened. A 
railroad was built to the Yukon Valley. The Cape Nome district, 
where the ocean shore was graveled with gold, became one of the most 
productive gold fields on earth. Outgoing and returning miners and 
travelers to that region stopped at the door of the mission station on the 
Aleutian Islands. 

Among those who went out from Unalaska were two Woman's Home 
Missionary Society missionaries, who established a mission station on the 
shore of Bering Sea at Sinuk, near Nome, Alaska. Their work was to 
be among Eskimos, a people of distinct personality, who had never 
come under the influence of the Greek Church and who quickly became 
good Protestant Christians. There, in a country where they must wear 
furs out of doors and sleep in a fur bag, where the ground never thawed 
though the June sun shone on it twenty-two hours of the day, living in a 
log cabin for a year, and later in rooms of the public school house, Mr. 
and Mrs. Sellon started to **make a community" out of a few hundred 
Eskimos whose chief occupation was fishing and roaming the frozen 
shore of the sea. The children of these people were left at Sinuk by 
their parents, while they departed for the summer fishing. These, along 
with little orphans, furnished the pupils for the mission school. 

Bearing in mind the development of the Eskimo as a child of his own 
people, the missionaries had indenture papers made out so that during 
the summer season the children would go with their parents, to keep 
in touch with the life of their people. It took a long time for the Home 
to materialize. Only one freight boat left Seattle for Sinuk in a year. 
All the material, stoves, fuel, furniture, a year's supply of groceries 
for missionaries and apprentices, had to be sent then from the United 
States. The Hilah Seward Industrial Home and Orphanage, named 
after Secretary Seward's cousin, was completed in 1907. The 
walls had to have five thicknesses of timber and building paper. Out- 
side doors had to have storm porches. All the windows were double. 

[127] 



The chimneys were lined with cement to make them fireproof. A scien- 
tific ventilating system was always necessary where Eskimos congregated. 
The home, located a few feet away from the Government building, con- 
tained a chapel, eight rooms, a dispensary, dormitory, a bath room 
and closets. 

Three hundred more Eskimos lived eight miles away at King Island, 
so as to be there in the spring when walrus and other game came floating 
down on ice floes from the Arctic seas. The missionaries were desirous 
of getting those people to locate at Sinuk so the children could attend 
the mission school. The only way was to have a boat large enough to 
carry the men from Sinuk to King Island promptly when the game 
appeared, and then they would be content to live at Sinuk. The women 
of the New Jersey Conference sent money for the boat as their twenty- 
fifth anniversary present. The New Jersey was built at Seattle and taken 
to Sinuk. It no sooner touched the water than the delighted Eskimos 
swarmed over it. A captain for the boat was elected. Then they went 
immediately up the coast for a whale which had been cast ashore, and 
buried it deep in the ground to be used in winter for dog-meat. 

The far-seeing missionaries realized that some industry must be devel- 
oped among the Eskimos just as among the Aleuts. They selected deer 
herding as the most acceptable and profitable industry for Sinuk and 
Nome. They arranged to borrow one hundred reindeer from the Gov- 
ernment and in return promised to furnish three Eskimo boys for each 
hundred reindeer, to be trained in the care of reindeer by the best Gov- 
ernment herder, — a Laplander, by name of Dunnak. The cost of caring 
for the apprentice was five dollars a year. So down in the States were 
children and women of the Woman's Home Missionary Society ''buying 
reindeer" at five dollars apiece. As the herd increased the new animals 
belonged to the Society and apprentices. The deer herding was very 
successful. In 1913 they had four hundred and forty-six reindeer in 
the herd. Six families had entered the industry. The herd receipts for 
1915 were $500. Late reports say there are 40,000 reindeer in Alaska, 
two-thirds of which belong to the natives. Sinuk Mission had three 
hundred and forty-one, one-half of which belong to the apprentices. In 
1918 one hundred little fawns had come to- the herd. 

The Eskimos are very fond of music, so a plea for second-hand 

[ 128 ] 



musical instruments was made. Within a year after Hilah Seward 
Home was built word came that the chapel was too small, that hundreds 
of Eskimos were turned away. The boat, too, was doing good service. 
In 1 9 1 3 an Eskimo boy who had been the engineer of the boat was sent 
to Tacoma by the Government to study engineering. A church had 
been organized by the Woman's Home Missionary Society, — the first 
Eskimo Methodist Episcopal Church in Alaska, — ^with Dr. John Par- 
sons, superintendent. 

The Eskimos had been encouraged to dry berries and walrus meat 
so as to prepare for winter. They put the dried berries in a bag made 
of the skin of a seal, and buried walrus meat and berries. In 1913, 
during a terrible storm, berries, walrus meat and nearly all supplies were 
washed out to sea. The Home was damaged and part of the coal was 
lost also. One thousand dollars was hurriedly borrowed and dispatched 
at once to the mission at Sinuk and disaster was averted. During the 
year 1919 influenza at Sinuk swept away half the population of the vil- 
lage, together with five victims from the Seward Home and Orphanage. 
This tragedy was followed on August 29 by a fire which destroyed the 
entire building and contents. Two little children perished in the flames. 
The rescued children and teachers were taken to Nome, where they were 
cared for in an emergency orphanage. The Society was once more face 
to face with the task of rebuilding after a fire. 

The success of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in Alaska 
has depended very much on the personal equation. The calibre of the 
missionary has been the making of Jesse Lee Home, of Hilah Seward 
Home and Lavinia Wallace Young Mission. The work is so hard in 
Alaska that three years is all that is safe for a worker without furlough. 
During the years they were often in danger of being sacrificed by over- 
work. Again and again some of them returned to the beloved field. 
They passed through years of privation. The inability to keep in touch 
with the home land could but be wearing. Mails came but occasionally, 
sometimes not for a year. When the boat arrived the school closed and 
the whole village went for the mail. The boat stayed but two hours, — a 
scant time to read the precious packet of letters and write an answer for 
the returning boat. Such an experience is like the sudden opening of a 
beautiful vision and sudden closing again. IH crushes enthusiasm, cuts 
into the vitality of life, and ages the body of the missionary. 

As some one has said, **It takes grit and grace and gumption to work 
in Alaska." r ^29 i 



Border Schools — Spanish-American 



Spanish-American Homes, Schools 
and Settlements 



Name Location 

Harwood Albuquerque, New Mex. 

Mary J. Piatt Tucson, Arizona 

Frances De Pauw ^^^ Angeles, California 

Rose Gregory Houchen ^^ P^^°' 'Texas 

George O. Robinson Orphanage ^^" J^^^' f"^^*^ ^^^^ 

McKinley, Woodruff, Fisk, and Williams 

Day Schools Porto Rico 



[132] 



VIII 



BORDER SCHOOLS 



SPANISH-AMERICAN 

IF the energy and perseverance that characterizes the constituency of 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society could have been injected into 
the Mexicans and Spanish-Americans on our border, there might have 
been a record of innumerable achievements after thirty years of faithful 
labor. When the environment and type of people ard taken into con- 
sideration, the four peaks of accomplishment in New Mexico and Arizona 
stand high as evidence of what initiative, skill and divine guidance can 
do in a land where leisure is a necessity, ignorance is bliss, and poverty 
the rule of the day. When missionaries went into that field of work they 
found mostly small towns, mining camps, and herders' ranches scattered 
over the land. They saw Indians, Spanish-Mexicans and Chinese, with 
adherents of Mormonism and Romanism. The work was a long time 
in getting established, since the people would not be hurried. Mission- 
aries had to wrestle withj conditions born of baffling Orientalism, con- 
tentment, prejudice, climatic difficulties, crossing of breeds, and many 
years of no education, or educational effort. The usual methods of 
opening work, applied in other mission fields, were of little avail. The 
people did not care for kindergartens for their children, they did not 
approve of day schools, and resented any stimulus to active labor. It 
took fifteen years before they accepted education as necessary training 
for their youth. Bible women and schools were the initial needs of these 
people. The Society had one Bible reader who read the Bible in 
Spanish and two teachers in Albuquerque, in 1 887. The call was for 
two women for Spanish, two for English, and two for Indian work. 

Harwood Industrial School — The first Industrial School was 
opened in a rented house at Albuquerque, N. M. Six years later an 
eligible site was secured for the Home while the mission school opened 
in connection with Albuquerque College. The progress was necessarily 

[133] 



slow, but by 1 896 the Home was dedicated. Everybody took an interest 
in this new building. Mexican friends helped irrigate the grounds so a 
garden and fruit trees would grow. The telephone company of Albu- 
querque put in a telephone free, business men sent checks to help out. 
Conference auxiliaries furnished desks for the school room, maps, charts 
and blackboards. Kindergarten chairs arrived a year later. From the 
Atlantic to the Pacific auxiliaries sent gifts to Harwood Home. 

The girls who entered Harwood were intellectually slow. They 
were devotional as a race and soon became a credit to the workers. As 
they stayed in the school and became m.ore mature, their progress was 
more rapid. Roses in the garden grew apace with those in the school. 
The Home yearly became more attractive and more girls enrolled. In 
September, 1 900, they came in various ways, on foot, in wagons and 
during fair week when rates were low, they came by train. They 
crowded the house so that rows of little beds were placed in the attic to 
accommodate all of the sixty-three girls. 

The much needed addition to the Home v^as completed in 1905, 
and its name announced as Harwood Industrial School. That same 
year a hospital for contagious diseases was placed on part of the land 
at Albuquerque. An exhibition of pupils' work at the Territorial Fair 
caused an increase of paying pupils. Thirty-one beneficiaries had been 
in the school since 1 899. The fine school room was the pride of Har- 
wood. The sewing course was very thorough, and by and by girls 
began to go to more advanced schools. One girl went to Kansas City 
to train for deaconess work among her people. A high school course 
was added to the curriculum, but later withdrawn. Harwood Industrial 
School is one of the best in the state. Of forty-five girls in 1 908 one- 
third were self-supporting. 

Improvements were made in third floor dormitory, plumbing, a heat- 
ing system, electric lights and fire-escapes have been added to the building. 
The latest news from Harwood announces the largest graduating class 
in its history with sixty-one girls enrolled for its coming year. Spanish 
people are now more able to pay for their girls' schooling. English for 
Mexican children coming from over the border is essential in order to 
train them for earning a living. The present needs of Harwood are 
room and equipment. 

[134] 



Las Vegas Mission — Among early attempts to establish missions 
was that of Las Vegas, where in 1 893 the Society had a day school of 
pupils of all ages, from childhood to adults, all there to learn English. 
Fifty-five were in the day school. Thirty-three were in sewing classes. 
Cooking, too, was taught. The winter enrollment was large, but in 
spring the people went away. In 1 900 a small cottage for workers was 
opened, with kindergarten, sewing classes and workers' meetings. Later 
this was used as a home for invalid workers. 

Mary J. Platt Industrial School — In 1 904 Las Vegas Mis- 
sion was closed and transferred to Tucson, Ariz. This was a fortunate 
move. Tucson was a beautiful, growing city. Arizona was a large 
field. Spanish girls were in need of educational opportunities. Even 
the women from Old Mexico could take advantage of this school. In 
1906 the mission was moved to a house where a small school could be 
opened. As the school grew the English-speaking church gave the 
mission a tent. This was used as a school room by day and a dormitory 
at night. A fine plot of land was secured, and plans for a building of 
Spanish design were ready long before sufficient money was secured for 
the Home. Even in that beautiful out-of-door land it was uphill work 
teaching in a tent, meagerly furnished with borrowed benches. The 
Board of Education finally lent a small building which had been the old 
high school building. It was used for the school, while girls and teachers 
still slept in the tent, and before relief came they placed beds on the porch 
behind the tent and in the sitting room of the small cottage. The large 
family spent the first year in the Mary J. Platt Industrial School with 
Httle furniture and amid the confusion of installing a furnace. Proof 
that underneath the calm exterior of indolent people the leaven of ambi- 
tion was doing its perfect work can be seen in the fact that the teacher 
for the little ones was a Mexican girl, a, graduate of Folts Institute, that 
twenty-seven children were in the kindergarten, that by 1914 one hun- 
dred girls had enrolled in the Industrial School, that the people of Tucson 
were proud of their ''school," and pupils were going to Harwood and 
Kansas City for advanced training. 

A new sleeping porch was added to the building in 1 9 1 7 to relieve 
the congestion. People fleeing across the border into Arizona have filled 
the school to overflowing during the last few years. Girls come who 

[135] 



can neither read nor write English, and once in a while one who cannot 
read Spanish finds her way there. 

Frances De Pauw Industrial School — The Woman's Home 
Missionary Society made its first appropriation to Spanish work in the 
Southern CaHfornia Conference in 1 898. As frontier work the Society 
supplemented the salary of the pastor at Ventura Mission, and aided in 
the construction of the church edifice at El Rio, at that time the only 
Spanish Methodist Episcopal Church on thd Pacific coast. 

The Spanish people had been citizens of the United States for fifty 
years, but had not been well churched like the English people who lived 
in this part of the golden West. Most of them were a mixture of Spanish 
and Indian blood. The girls were very pretty, sympathetic and ignorant. 
Their surroundings were not favorable to advancement nor conducive to 
fine living. There was need of a place to shelter and educate this class 
of girls as well as the daughters of converted Spanish families. In 1 900 
a house was provided by Mrs. F. W. De Pauw, furnished by the South- 
ern California Conference, and its support guaranteed by the Board of 
Managers. Such were the beginnings of the Frances De Pauw Industrial 
School for Spanish girls. The school outgrew the house in two years. 
Then a new building was erected on an acre of ground outside the city 
limits of Los Angeles, but near enough for a five-cent carfare. From 
the main building, 62 x 73 feet, the view of the mountains and Cah- 
menga Valley is incomparable. The Home contained twenty-one rooms 
besides an overflow dormitory in the attic. The large school room was 
on the first floor. Here the Spanish girls lived happy and industrious 
on five dollars a month. Outside of school hours they cooked, scrubbed, 
washed and ironed. The San Francisco earthquake taxed their sympa- 
thies. They sewed on new garments and added some from their own 
scant wardrobes for the unfortunate in the stricken city. They also prayed 
for the safety of "Maria," one of the girls who was living there. Hope 
of an annex in 1908 took shape in a new building completed in 1912, 
and a hospital ward. Two years later a sleeping porch was added. In 
spite of a good equipment and loyal teachers the work increases in diffi- 
culty as the number of refugees from over the border grows larger. Girls 
have been turned away for lack of room, at other times for lack of sup- 
port. There is often danger of turning them away for both reasons. The 

[136] 



course of study offered by this splendid school is as follows: School 
work from first to eighth grade, music, instrumental (piano, organ, guitar, 
mandolin), vocal, industrial training, laundry work, cooking, gardening, 
sewing, dress-making and embroidery. 

De Pauw's last graduates, five in number, enrolled in the Deaconess 
Training School at San Francisco. Their course there includes kinder- 
garten, domestic science and evangelistic work. 

Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement — Missionary attempts 
were made at Candelarias and La Cruces, but gradually these places 
were abandoned and work centered around El Paso, Texas. This town 
is the gateway to Old Mexico and is crowded with the class which needs 
Christian ministrations. The mission opened in 1 899 with seventy-five 
pupils. A girl from Harwood assisted the worker for two years. The 
public schools improved, so stress was laid on industrial and missionary 
teaching. In 1901 the work was suspended for a year, and in 1904 it 
was halted until it could be suitably housed. Although the Society had 
ground for the house in 1 906, the much coveted building was not com- 
pleted until 1913. The condition at El Paso demanded the settlement 
type of work rather than an Industrial Home. The Rose Gregory 
Houchen Settlement House opened its doors prepared for kindergartens, 
workers' meetings, industrial classes and social clubs. Here, amid unset- 
tled conditions and border raids and typhus fever, deaconesses and mis- 
sionaries have worked on. Through the kindergarten the parents are 
reached, who come to hear the children sing and to watch them at their 
games. The Christmas and Easter celebrations have become community 
affairs. Boys' clubs with lessons in Sloyd have been added. After the 
typhus epidemic people from the Mexican quarter of the town gladly 
availed themselves of the shower-baths in the basement of the settlement 
house. 

Not only did influenza claim its victims in northern Alaska, it placed 
its deadly grip upon two teachers and many pupils of Rose Gregory 
Houchen Settlement at El Paso. The Settlement House was closed 
during the epidemic and the workers did volunteer service at the emer- 
gency hospital in a nearby public school. In March, 1919, the 
number of pupils in all classes totaled two thousand, and the superin- 
tendent sent urgent requests for folding chairs needed for services and 

[137] 



social entertainments, for Sloyd tools, cooking class supplies and for the 
library. 

The girls who pass through the Industrial Homes of the Southwest 
are second to none of the wards of the great Society. Coming from a 
unique environment, with the advantage of many strains of blood, lacking 
only the opportunity to make the most of themselves, they respond to the 
pretty surroundings and bright companionship, to Christian love and 
education, as flowers to the sun. Gazing into their sweet faces, noticing 
their well-poised bodies and comprehending the intellectual training of 
these Spanish and Mexican girls, one is once more reminded of the saying, 
**He that fetcheth his race longest jumps farthest." 

AN ISLAND MISSION— PORTO RICO 

Ten years ago there were 384,000 people under sixteen years of age 
in Porto Rico. The Spanish women and children on the island bore the 
brunt of unchaste and unclean surroundings and paid most fully the price 
of ignorance and superstition. The Woman's Home Missionary Society 
could have chosen no more fertile field for work than Porto Rico and 
none more fittingly theirs. The difficulties there were those of all Roman 
Catholic countries. The Society's first schools were in the main centres 
of Porto Rico, but places farth^^r out were early contemplated. 

McKlNLEY Day School — In November, 1901, the superintend- 
ent of missions of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church gave McKinley Day School at San Juan to the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society on condition that the Society would provide the 
teacher. One of the deaconesses who had been studying Spanish was 
induced to take the day school. It met in a room belonging to the 
Spanish church. Attendance on this day school depended upon attend- 
ance at the Sunday-school of the Methodist Episcopal Spanish Church. 
Scholarships in the day school v/ere f.xed at $15. The enrollment 
reached one hundred and fifty inside of two years. In 1906 a kinder- 
garten was added to the day school, and teachers visited the homes ol 
the pupils. In 1907 the public schools had improved so much that there 
was no need of grading above the third primary. The kindergarten 
therefore became the main feature of McKinley Day School. At the 
same time a small Teachers' Training School for Porto Rican women 

[138] 



was conducted at McKinley with six women in training. The plan was 
to send these women out to Methodist Episcopal churches on the island 
to work there with the children. 

By 1 909 McKinley kindergarten and kindergarten training school in 
San Juan enrolled one hundred and fifty children and seven in teacher 
training, and had practice work at a branch kindergarten in Puerta de 
Tierra. The first corps of workers consisted of two deaconesses. Prop- 
erty for an orphanage at Arecibo was offered to the Society, but was 
declined. When the orphanage and Industrial Home at San Juan was 
opened in 1902, six orphans came from the Arecibo orphanage. The 
next year the Society discontinued the deaconess Home and organized 
settlement work at Puerta de Tierra. This settlement was closed the 
following year because the Missionary Society opened work there. 

George O. Robinson Orphanage — In 1903 the George O. 
Robinson Orphanage and Industrial Home for girls was established at 
San Turce, the name recognizing the gift of $5,000 to this special 
field. Sixteen girls were enrolled. The new building was started 
in 1906 and was ready for occupancy in 1907. The main building, 
placed on a high knoll, was made of cement blocks. It had a large 
school room and dining room on the first floor, and two large dormitories 
and four teachers' rooms on the second. In a cottage, later known as 
Yates Cottage, was provision for industrial work. When carefully 
remodeled this building contained one large room for sewing classes, one 
for a rainy day play room, a room for girls' reading room, and a second 
floor dormitory, Effa Z. Ham play pavilion, and the **Casa de 
Salud," a small hospital known as Kellogg Bourne Memorial completed 
the building equipment for this splendid orphanage and Industrial Home. 
In 1911 two Porto Rican girls were taken to Rust Hall for further 
training in kindergarten, domestic science and sewing. Forty-seven girls 
of the orphanage joined the Spanish Methodist Episcopal Church in 
1913. The branch work of McKinley kindergarten at Puerta de Tierra 
later became Woodruff Day School and Kindergarten. A second day 
school was opened at Ponce in 1907 in connection with the Spanish 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Here a Porto Rican woman taught the 
school, its justification being the over-crowded public school. Later it 
was called Fisk Day School. A fourth day school was taught by a girl 

[ 139 ] 



trained at McKinley, on Vieques Island. This later was moved to 
Arecibo and named Williams Day School. Work among lepers was 
supported by several denominations. The Woman's Home Missionary 
societies were allowed to receive credit for Methodism's part in this 
humane ministry. That a flourishing orphanage and Industrial Home 
and four day schools could be founded and put on a firm footing in ten 
years in a Catholic country is concrete evidence of the excellent system of 
support and supervision which the Society has built up. It is also an 
irrefutable proof that Porto Rico is ready for the Gospel. 



[140] 



Moving Hearthstones 



Indian Mission Stations — 1920 



Name 
Stickney 
Navajo 
Digger 

Pottawatomie 
Ponca 
Yuma 



Location 
Everson, Washington 
Farmington, New Mexico 
Greenville, California 
Mayetta, Kansas 
White Eagle, Oklahoma 
Yuma, Arizona 



[142] 



IX 



MOVING HEARTHSTONES 



THERE were times when the church lost its early fervor in Indian 
work. There were times when the Indian question was a sore one 
in the nation. There were times when the frontiers filled upf with evil, 
rapacious adventurers who were there to destroy the Indian, when the 
Indian retahated eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, when Government 
agents were liars and cheats, then again when they were humane and 
Christian. During these chaotic years missionaries of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society went singing, praying, conversing in camps of the 
Indians, teaching the women to cook, sew and nurse, coaxing the small 
papooses to school, washing their little faces, healing their diseases, 
teaching them to read, write and pray. These women stood staunch 
and patient and clean and honest before the Indian, his unfaiHng friends, 
his earthly guides, pointing the way to self-preservation and advancement, 
leading him to righteous living and Christian service. We do not see 
very many fine buildings as monuments of Indian work, but we do see 
many Christian Indian boys and girls. We see Indian farms and homes 
and churches and social settlements. 

The policy of the Government in 1 89 1 in regard to Indian education 
influenced the policy of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in its 
Indian work. The education of the Indians was relegated to the Govern- 
ment, placing schools and employees under the Civil Service to avoid 
the fluctuations of politics. The women therefore decided to have no 
schools except the two already established, — at Pawhuska, Okla., and 
among the Nooksacks in Washington. They would need no expensive 
buildings, and could carry the Gospel and its ministries directly to the 
Indian in an effort to promote a better life in better surroundings. They 
rightly felt that the **pJea for the Indian was the plea for cities yet to be." 

Complications soon came in their exclusive mission to the Indians. 
When they first entered this field, they alone occupied the immense tract 

[143] 



then called Indian Territory, afterward becoming the state of Oklahoma. 
This soon became missionary ground of mixed character. Many whites, 
poor, disappointed in a rush for homes, many of them bad, with liquor, 
made up a combination that was dangerous to the red man, whose 
heathenisms were intensified by a touch of the white man's vices. In 
1 894 the Indian bureau became the bureau for Indian and frontier work, 
and the Society ministered to all as occasion demanded. This same year, 
at a meeting in the church of Henry Ward Beecher, an organization was 
formed to help the Indians, called the Woman's National Indian Asso- 
ciation. Its policy was to go into a locality, found an Indian mission, 
and after it was thoroughly established in the course of several years, 
turn it over to some neighboring evangelical organization. Through the 
Woman's National Indian Association the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society came into the possession of a number of Indian missions. 

In many instances the Government co-operated with the Society and 
vice versa. A special instance of their mutual work was in the provision 
of the Field Matron. This official was nominated by the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society and employed by the Government. One was assigned 
to the Pawnees, one to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes of the Algonquin 
tribes. In 1894 two more were added, one for New Mexico, and 
one for Indian Territory. In one instance the Field Matron, being a 
Woman's Home Missionary Society missionary, reported her work to 
the Society. The ofifice of Field Matron was abolished in 1902. 

The church, too, arranged to co-operate with the Society. In some 
mission stations the church appointed the minister and the women ap- 
pointed his wife to the same place for woman's work under the condition 
that the minister could not be removed from the mission without the 
sanction of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. 

Those who have worked for years with the Indian are sure of his 
ability, and are in sympathy with his desire to be an American citizen 
with full, equal rights of the same. The workers unanim.ously insist 
that the Indian be dealt with in all respects like other races who find a 
home on American soil. 

An attempt to index the tribes of Indians who have been under the 
care of the Woman's Home Missionary Society from 1891 to 1919 

[144] 



leads one to appreciate the Government's reference to a tribe in the state 
of Washington as Tribe No. 1434. Necessary changes of the work 
from bureau to bureau have given reports of the Indian missions some- 
v/hat the character of their nomadic charges. The initial division placed 
Indian work under (1 ) the Bureau of New Mexico and Arizona, (2) 
Indian Bureau. The latest reports of Indian work read as follows: 
( 1 ) Indian work in Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, under which 
are the Navajo Industrial Home and School, the Pottawatomie and the 
Ponca missions. (2) Indian work on the Pacific coast, including 
Stickney, Yuma and Digger Indian missions. During the twenty-eight 
or twenty-nine years, the following tribes have been definitely reached 
by the Woman's Home Missionary Society: The Navajo, Apache, 
Pawnee, Ponca, Pottawatomie, Osage-Pawhuska, Nooksack, Yuma, 
Digger, Cocopah and Yakima. 

Although work among all Indians was conducted on the same prin- 
ciples, yet a short account of the individual missions shows some differ- 
entiation in work as well as in the character of the Indians in the several 
tribes. i ' ; 

The Navajoes — No more thrilling account of the opening of a 
mission under the Woman's Home Missionary Society can be found 
than that of the one to the Navajo Indians located at Jewett, N. M., on 
the San Juan River, seventy- four miles from a railroad. It reads, **As 
the sun was declining behind the lofty mountains at the west, the Durango 
stage left two lone women on the border of the Navajo reservation. A 
wagon soon followed with a tent and a few necessary household articles. 
Men put up the tent, set up a little stove and drove away, leaving the 
women alone, while two Indians wrapped in blankets sat at a distance 
and watched the proceedings. The women put their tent in order, pre- 
pared their evening meal, pinned a piece of cloth across the opening of 
the tent, said their prayers and went to bed." Before long the Navajoes 
came to inspect the tent. They brought an interpreter, who asked how 
large a building they were going to build. The missionary marked out a 
space 16x16 feet, and the Indians were satisfied, since they knew it 
could not be large enough for a school house, against which they were 
prejudiced. 

It was soon discovered that the newcomers had medicine with them. 

[145] 



There was much sickness among the Navajoes, so the mission tent soon 
became a small dispensary. The Indians brought their friends from far 
and near to be cured by the white women. 

A small, inexpensive house was built as a test of what the Indians 
would allow. They took very kindly to the house and were anxious 
to learn to cook and to sew. In order to attract the women to the mis- 
sion where they could be taught these things, the missionaries sent to 
Durango for yarn and allowed the women to weave rugs while there. 
Several women stayed at the house, v/here they could weave the rugs 
and learn at the same time to cook and sew. They were delighted to do 
as the white women did, and skillfully dyed the wool and wove rugs. 

The Navajoes were an industrious, self-respecting people. They had 
not been known to draw rations from the Government and were anxious 
and able to learnl and to improve. So the women sent for a sewing 
machine, spinning wheel, knitting needles and a big kettle for washing, 
and taught all who came. It was more difficult to teach the Indians 
spiritual things than the handicrafts. They had a sign language for 
visible objects, but none for abstract ideas. The people grew very fond 
of the missionaries, who often aided them in their difficulties with white 
neighbors, and smoothed over many a quarrel. In return the Indians 
showed their gratitude when one of the missionaries was sick by protecting 
them from bad white men. They kept an Indian watcher outside of the 
house supplied with arms and ammunition * 'until the mission had the 
appearance of a small arsenal." They were an imitative race and 
advanced quickly. Eight of the braves built log houses with doors and 
windows, and several cultivated their fields. The next thing wa& to dig 
a well, for the river water resembled soap-suds. 

The year 1 895 was a hard year on the reservation and at the little 
mission as well, and yet providential in the lesson it taught the Indians. 
wSevere sandstorms almost ruined the mission house. Drought soon brought 
the people almost to starvation. Many were forced to eat their sheep, 
goats, and finally their ponies to keep alive. Then indeed did they value 
education and see the need of tilling the land and of irrigation. They 
began at once to work on ditches with the poorest of tools. The ditches 
had to be a mile long and twelve feet deep, and the Navajoes started the 

[146] 



difficult feat with only an axe and a shovel with a broken handle. 
Another crowd had an axe, so they cut down a cedar tree and made 
'*mud spoons" out of it with which to scoop out thes dirt. Then better 
tools were secured for them through the Indian Rights Association, and 
during the year they irrigated six hundred acres. Navajoes from the 
farthest end of the reservation begged the missionaries to teach them how 
to irrigate the soil and promised to stop drinking and work hard if the 
white people would show them how to do the work. 

The year following was even more difficult owing to the transition 
of the people from herders to farmers. They were forced to change 
their mode of life because of the fall in prices of wool, pelts and ponies. 
So they built homes and the men became ranchmen and the women 
weavers of beautiful Navajo blankets. 

The permanent mission Home was completed in about four months. 
The missionaries took up land by the side of the mission as homestead 
land, then by codicil to their will gave it to the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society. The new adobe building was 1 6 x 44 feet, with walls 
14 inches thick. 

ITie Government furnished school for one hundred out of four thou- 
sand Indian children. The number of children in the mission school 
fluctuated, since the children went with their parents who moved about 
looking for pasture. A proposition was considered in 1 898 to open a 
day school to white children as well as Indians, and to keep the Navajo 
children through the winter. The dormitory would cost fifteen hundred 
dollars. In 1 899 twenty white children attended day school and thir- 
teen Navajoes stayed at the mission. The parents were very fond of 
visiting the school and watching their children write and count, and de- 
scribe picture cards. It was quite usual to have a stalwart Indian in a 
big blanket move about the school room and compare slates of the white 
with those of the Indian, as if he understood. Perhaps in his laconic way 
he knew more than he admitted. Then the whole school caught the 
whooping cough. The people were making splendid progress. The 
missionaries were about to buy a farm where the children could learn to 
till the ground when certain events made important changes wise. 

The Woman's National Indian Association transferred a hospital 
located near the Methodist Mission to the Presbyterian Church. The 

[147] 



Society sold the property at Jewett and bought a farm three miles from 
Farmington. It had a good well free from alkali, was high, healthful 
land and joined the reservation on the east. It was on the San Juan 
River, across from a large number of Navajoes, and had telegraph 
communication with Durango. The new farm proved very satisfactory 
witn good water, fertile ground and various fruit trees. One thousand 
dollars, pledged besides the sale of the land at Jewett, provided means 
for a new building. 

The San Juan River was apt to run high ; the people of Farmington 
built a foot-bridge over it, so that the missionaries and children could 
cross no matter how high the water was. The great need was water, 
and protection from water. The land needed irrigation, and on one 
occasion the children and missionaries were forced to camp on the Indian 
side of the river because of floods. The Home was well adapted for the 
work. The children made marked progress in English and showed real 
gift in modeling clay dishes and animals. 

Irrigation resulted in the growth of alfalfa, potatoes and other vege- 
tables. A new force pump, new furniture, ranges, stoves, paint and paper 
transformed the Home. At this time the Government agent sent for the 
missionary to go to Ship Rock, where six hundred Navajoes were gath- 
ered. The agent had urged them to send their children to the Mission 
School. Before doing so, they insisted on seeing the woman, to make 
sure that she was a proper person for them to trust their children with. 
The inspection must have been satisfactory, as the children began to 
arrive in a few days. Fourteen had never been to school before. The 
cleaning-up process was the first difficult move. One little bit of a fellow 
fought with all his small might, but when cleaned up was one of the 
sweetest little fellows in the Home. The children liked the neatness of 
everything, — the dishes particularly. On their visits home they would 
tell such tales of life at the mission to their parents that the Indians 
would return with the children to find out if such things were so. 

New implements were needed regularly, since they gave out quickly 
in the hot, dry climate. Single beds, too, were purchased upon the order 
of the Government. In 1910a handbook of the Navajo language was 
gotten out. Charts and textbooks were sent by a Conference auxiUary. 

In 1911 a new building, 42 x 72 feet, was completed. The old 

[ 148 ] 



Home was turned into a boys' dormitory, while the school building was 
added to and became the Mary E. Tripp Memorial Hospital. 

The annals of 1912 report the complete destruction of the Navajo 
mission by the overflow of the San Juan River. The disaster was over- 
whelming. Nothing of value was left after twenty-one years of labor, 
and there was no insurance against flood. Six months later a new loca- 
tion of fifteen acres was secured, one and a quarter miles from Farming- 
ton, — on the same side of the river as the town. The first building, the 
Mary E. Tripp Memorial, was erected by the Troy Conference. This 
was a large building of twenty rooms, three good-sized dormitories, a 
large cellar or storeroom, and an outside vegetable cellar on the side 
hilL The workers gathered together machinery and tools for farming, 
and stocked up with two horses, two cows and a calf, six hogs, turkeys 
and chickens, rabbits and Belgian hares. When the little Navajoes 
returned, after living the wild Hfe for eighteen months, they brought back 
all sorts of troubles. Some showed signs of tuberculosis. Others had 
trachoma or skin diseases. These, with chicken-pox, gave the workers 
much to do. Fifteen more acres of land were purchased. Katherine 
H. Bassett Cottage was built and used for school work, and home of 
two of the workers. They were relieved in 1914 by the arrival of a 
good doctor. In 1917 the Navajo Mission passed over to the care of 
the Bureau of Indian Work in Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. 
The mission gives regular instruction in industrial work and a short 
course in agriculture. Its Junior Red Cross did a great deal of knitting 
during war times, — the Indian lad served his country. Material improve- 
ments are following rapidly, including a water system, washing machines, 
fire extinguishers, fire-escapes, two horses and playground equipment. 

The Apaches — ^A mission to the Apache Indians was established 
at Dulce, N. M., in 1891. The Indians wanted a school on their 
reservation for their children who had been sick when at the Government 
school. When the missionary appeared, however, the children fled in 
all directions, — ^hiding behind bouldersi on the mountain side, slipping 
under fur rugs in the tepees, all shaking in fright as from a chill. 

The allotting agent of the Government gave eighty fine acres for the 
school. There the missionary lived in a hut for five years. Converted 
Apache women filled chinks between the logs of the building with adobe. 

[149] 



The door was so low one had to stoop to enter. This was a central 
point for Protestantism, and a progressive one as well, since the church 
organized with five members grew to fifty within three years. On 
Thanksgiving Day, 1 896, their chapel was finished. The Indians cele- 
brated with a great feast of wild turkey. The new organ was an added 
attraction. The school grew so that almost at once came the call for a 
bigger school building. In 1897 the school faced an opening day **with 
empty larder, empty purse and children crowding in," but barrels from 
Albany and Rensselaer arrived with blankets, clothes, groceries, dried 
fruits, ham, shoes, boots and printyig press. 

Then an epidemic of small-pox threatened the school, but it did not 
reach the children within, though many died on the reservation. They 
were wonderfully bright children, — little Coul-tu-yeh (Henrietta), five 
years old, could speak the English, Spanish and Apache languages. 
After seventeen years of careful teaching, pupils were studying at the 
Government school in Kansas and at Harwood School, Albuquerque. 
In 1905 all Apache children were taken to the Government school, 
leaving only American and Mexican children. Though the school recov- 
ered from the change, the Indian work there was at an end. 

The Pawnees — ^The Pawnee Mission at Paw^nee, Okla., is the 
oldest Indian mission under the Woman's Home Missionary Society. It 
was given to the Society by the Woman's National Indian Association. 
In 1 885 a woman and her boy of fifteen took up the work as it was 
turned over from the Indian Association. We next hear of Pawnee 
Mission in 1891 when a group of little boys at Union City, Pa., sent 
money for a pony that the missionary might reach the Indians within the 
reservation. At this time one woman and her interpreter were working 
among the Pawnees. They had a very small house, with land enough 
to grow a garden and keep a cow. They had a little chapel with an 
organ and chair seats. It was the Pawnees who insisted on chairs as 
fitting for a church, saying **no sit on bench." 

The missionary, an educated Pawnee woman, had trouble with serv- 
ice disturbances. A young, half-educated Indian, a hypnotist, came 
among them, instituting ghost dances, and the Indians v/ould be seized 
and begin to dance while in church. There was a good Government 
school at Pawnee, and these Indians had good farms. They had a 

[150] 



minister in 1895, a member of the Pawnee tribe. With the help of the 
Church Extension Society and the Oklahoma Conference a church was 
built. That year, at the request of the Conference, the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society transferred the church to the Conference. Two 
years later, at the earnest request of the Conference, the church at Pawnee 
was returned to the Woman's Home Missionary Society. In 1 898 the 
mission had a gift of five acres at the agency. It was much coveted by 
the Indians for their sports, but as long as a missionary was employed 
there it belonged to the Woman's Home Missionary Society. One of 
the Field Matrons was assigned to the Pawnees. The work of the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society here has since been discontinued. 

The Poncas — In 1893 the Society had a Home and forty acres 
of land at Ponca, Okla., on the south fork of the Arkansas River. A 
railroad passed through the village. The Poncas were less industrious 
than the Pawnees. They longed for their happy hunting grounds; it 
took sixteen years to overcome their nomadic habits. They would rent 
their good homes to white people and live by preference in the tepees. 
When they first came into the Woman's Home Missionary Society's 
history there were a few hundred of them scattered over fifteen miles of 
territory. A Field Matron was a necessity here for mission work. Their 
evil influences were unscrupulous agents, Sabbath-desecrating whites, and 
liquor. In 1 903 the Poncas joined the whites and missionaries in build- 
ing a church. A good school was in full swing by 1 908. 

After Prohibition (for Indians) in 1908 the Poncas seemed to find 
themselves. They settled down on farms, in homes, and cultivated their 
lands, raised vegetables, fruits and live stock. In 1910 a new habit 
fixed itself upon many Poncas. They would chew a product of the 
century plant, or make a liquor from it to drink. The effect of this pel? o/e, 
as they called it, was much like opium. Their annual Sun Dance, where 
peyote was passed about freely, was demoralizing. There are now two 
thousand Poncas. Much depends on the missionary. The Home, badly 
out of repair, v/as renovated in 1912. Three classes of people among 
the Poncas are to be reached: The older class, who cling to their 
heathen rites; the peyote users; the youth returning from the Government 
schools at Mayetta, and in danger of slipping into the old habits of 
their fathers. 

[151] 



The Pawhuskas — The Adelaide Springer Osage Mission at 
Pawhuska, Okla., was named by the Upper Iowa Conference in 1891 
upon paying of $ I , I 00 for cottages for the mission. They had a school 
here of fifty-nine pupils. It was a contract school, the Government allow- 
ing $125 a year for each pupil. Sewing and mending delighted the 
children. Some were wholly Indians, others were partly white. They 
learned well, were docile, yet vivacious. A church erected through the 
influence of the mission was soon crowded. 

In I 894 the mission turned over its Indian school to the Government, 
keeping a day school open for the mixed races that were left. The 
task of the Society was to provide the religious life of the community 
and help conserve the teachings of the Government schools in the life 
of the returned young Indian. The Osages now and then grieved for 
the old tent life with smoke fires and wigwams, but they steadily increased 
in number and in stability of character. They irrigated their land, culti- 
vated gardens and fruit trees. The church and congregation flourished, 
with a Sunday-school of 125. In 1904 the church was transferred to 
the Oklahoma Conference for a consideration of one hundred dollars 
on the property. The building had been built jointly by the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society and the Church Extension Society. The 
hundred dollars was put upon the Pawnee Mission. 

The PoTTAWATOMIES — In 1903 a Woman's Home Missionary 
Society worker began visiting from house to house among the Pottawa- 
tomies near Mayetta, Kan. To make the work more permanent a * 'church 
house" was built during the year. Soon a telescope organ was added to 
the equipment of the house to house visitors. They set up a baseball 
ground and secured a graphophone. Crowds of Indians swarmed the 
place and played ball until dark. A day school was a success and the 
Christmas celebration of 1907 with gifts of dolls, pocket knives, hand- 
kerchiefs, neckties and candy added the crowning glory of popularity to 
the mission. A more permanent building was completed in 1911 and 
a day school flourished until adequate Government schools were provided 
in 1912. The mission continued, however, with an unusual number in 
attendance. 

A worker from Fisk Training School and one from Haskell Institute 
(Lawrence, Kan.) lived at the Pottawatomie Mission and started church 

[152] 



work. The church was small and the rooms back of it were needed for 
settlement work there. Later Rev. and Mrs. B. H. Hill took up the 
social service, and in 1915 the Fannie Murray Home, containing a fine 
reading room, was completed. 

Young Christian Indians from the Government school at Mayetta 
were very helpful in their social service work on both Ponca and Potta- 
watomie reservations. The mission had come in touch with these young 
people through Haskell Institute. 

In 1916 the dream of the workers for a Christian social centre was 
realized. The missionary pastor preached at four places also, and, won- 
der of wonders, Indian ponies were discarded for an automobile to go 
from meeting to meeting on the reservation. The Pottawatomie Mission 
was the proud possessor of a service flag with forty-two stars in 1918, 
and a Red Cross chapter. One Indian had three sons in the service. 

The Nooksacks — A mission to the Nooksack Indians was situated 
at Lynden, Wash., on the Nooksack River. Stickney Memorial Home 
and School was the only house and school in the bureau for Indian work. 
To save the making of a bridge over the Nooksack River, the course 
of the river was turned so that the twenty-five acre farm about this Home 
became an island. There, in 1899, seventeen beneficiaries, and later 
fifty children were given industrial training by the Society's hard-working 
missionaries. The children were domestic in taste. If allowed, they 
would be in the kitchen by five o'clock in the morning, but other studies 
did not come so easily to them. Learning in 1906 that one of the 
teachers was a dressmaker, the Indians brought bright-colored goods 
for their girls and there was a rush for new dresses among Indian girls. 
The Indians were ambitious for their children. They had gotten the 
idea of competition and insisted on strict attendance at school. Stickney 
Home was valued at $4,700. In 1 897 it received forty acres from the 
church, a part of Government land assigned to the church. The mission 
was also the possessor of Angora goats. The housekeeping was particu- 
larly heavy. Accounts of canning, cleaning, washing straw mattresses 
for fifty children, eighty quilts, twenty blankets, and of making one hun- 
dred yards of carpets as sunmier vacation work were, to say the least, 
not alluring. From October to November, 1907, five great floods vis- 
ited the island on which Stickney Home stood. Vegetables, fruit and 

[153] 



foot-bridge were lost. Cows, pigs, fowls and goats were saved. Great 
trees were washed up on the island. The water rose eight feet on the 
side of the house, but the Home stood firm and a repetition of the Navajo 
disaster was spared the faithful workers. 

In 1909 a marked change in missionary activities took place. The 
work was changed from that of boarding school to a line similar to the 
settlement work of the city mission plus a day school. It was 
carried on by two persons, a teacher and field matron. The teacher 
taught industrial classes for children who needed it. The matron went 
into the homes to help mothers. Both were assistants to the pastor of 
the church. This plan of work originated with the Woman's National 
Indian Association and was adopted by other Societies. It was felt that 
the new method was better for the adult Indian than the boarding school. 
It placed on the Indian the responsibility of caring for the bodily needs 
of his children, a natural right and duty of the parent. The Indians 
were both financially able and were sufficiently trained to be able to 
care for their children very nicely. In the early days of the tepee the 
child was better away from the paternal dwelling. It was a different 
matter by 1909, when the Home was changed. The child needed to 
live at home, to learn to love it and to become a part of family life. 
This plan has been admirably successful since its adoption by the Society 

The Yuma — ^A reservation of Yuma Indians is situated opposite 
the Mexican border on the California side of the Colorado River, two 
miles from the Arizona line. There were 1 , 1 00 Indians in! the tribe in 
1904. That year the Woman's National Indian Association sent a 
minister to the Yuma reservation to open a mission to the Indians. He 
built a mission cottage on four acres of land given by the Government. 
The four-room cottage was provided with large porches and was suitable 
for a sewing school. At the end of three years the Woman's National 
Indian Association, according to its custom, was ready to hand the 
mission over to an evangelical organization, and it came into the hands 
of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in 1907. 

The people were very superstitious, believed in evil spirits and were 
poverty stricken. The mission dispensary was supplied with medicine by 
the Government for a time, but wishing to keep the Indians somewhat 
under Government influence the agent withdrew the supply of medicine, 

[154] 



and from that time the Society had to furnish its own. In 1909 the 
missionary asked for eight sewing machines, which were used by forty- 
eight squaws, who attended sewing school. The Yumas insisted upon 
choosing the church for their children themselves, and chose the Methodist 
Mission Church. The needs of the work rapidly doubled and a hospital 
seemed a necessity. In 1917 the Government allowed the Society to 
use an acre of land for a new location of buildings on the hill where the 
Government school stood. This has greatly helped the work. 

The Diggers — The Digger Indians in California were well looked 
after by three agencies, — the Woman's Home Missionary Society, the 
Government, and the California Conference, — and responded very 
quickly to Christianizing influence. One of their ardent admirers declared 
that no race in history had made greater improvement in so short a time 
as six years; the mission originated in 1892. They had three United 
States day schools. In two years, sixty boys and girls of this tribe were 
ready for Government Indian schools. The mission work included a 
circuit of sixty miles and return. After 1904, Coyote Valley was 
added. The Indians would take their children and go far away for 
summer work, but return in time for the October opening of school. 
Religious education had good results. Their greatest drawback was 
liquor, which could readily be gotten from illicit sales. The converted 
Indians refused to work in the hop fields for good pay, preferring the bean 
fields which were free from vagabonds and whisky. 

In 1 905 the Government schools closed, so the mission schools were 
opened in 1907 and went well. The later difficulties have been the 
necessarily nomadic life of the tribe. Two hundred and eighty Indians 
lived on a tract of land which would not support one large white family. 
Twenty-two out of ninety-two acres were tillable. The rest was barren 
mountain side. The women knew little about nursing. In 1896 the 
mission at Ukiah was transferred to the California Conference. 

Two years later an Indian mission in Northern California, near 
Greenville, was given to the Society by the Woman's National Indian 
Association. A Government school is prosperous there. The Society 
has a church of eighty-six and a Sunday-school of ninety-five. The work 
is not only for the Digger Indians there, but reaches out to help them 
wherever they may be found. One hundred dollars was sent to the 

[155] 



mission to support blind old Indians who were trying to live on acorns 
and wasted wheat from the fields. About the time that the Digger 
mission in Ukiah was transferred to the care of the CaUfornia Conference 
(1895) a new field was received by the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, a mission to the Yakima Indians. 

The Yakimas — During President Grant's administration, **Tribe 
1434" v/as transformed by the Christian .achings of Father Wilbur, 
the Indian agent at Fort Simcoe, Wash. Three people carried on the 
work of Father Wilbur, — a Mr. and Mrs. Dorcester, and a Mrs. C. E. 
Miller, physician, teacher and missionary. Upon the death of Mrs. 
Dorcester, the work was handed over to the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society, Mrs. Miller remaining with her devoted Yakimas. The Indians 
were very fond of her, and because she had come from the East called 
her **the Boston Woman." There were fifteen hundred of them on that 
far-away frontier. They gave Mrs. Miller a little house with a garden 
and fruit trees. In 1901 she secured a ranch of forty acres at Toppenish, 
Ore., on the railroad, as a part of that which went by Government grant 
to the Methodist Episcopal Church. She placed a man on the ranch 
who irrigated it and grew alfalfa. In 1902 this ranch was named the 
Emily C. Miller ranch, in honor of Mrs. Miller, who had retired from 
the active service. Later, this work was transferred to other care. The 
young Indians, educated, Christian, are the hope of their race. They 
are forming Queen Esther Circles, Epworth Leagues, the Y. M. C. A. 
and the future churches. 

The future of the Indian work has been determined in the last few 
years by the success of Haskell Institute, the largest Government Indian 
school, located at Lawrence, Kan., with an enrollment of seven hundred 
Indians above fourteen years of age, from seventy-one different tribes. 
One hundred and five boys and girls at Haskell Institute expressed a 
preference for the Methodist Church. For some time the Society has 
supported a Young Women's Christian Association worker among Metho- 
dist students here. The new Esther Home at Lawrence provides a home 
for Indian girls who attend the Government school. About 1913 a fine 
Christian Indian visited every tent on Ponca reservation and won many 
Indians to Christ. The success which these young people had with their 
own people and the popularity of the Christian social settlement is an 
indication of the way which missions may take under present conditions. 

[156] 



Immigrant and City Work 



Immigrant and City Work 



Name 
Ellis Island and Immigrant Girls* Home 
East Boston Immigrant Home 
Glenn Home 
Esther Home 
Esther Home 

Anthracite Slavonic Mission 
Hull Street Medical Mission 
Marcy Center 

Portland Settlement Center 
Epworth Home for Girls 
Campbell Settlement 



Location 
New York City 
East Boston, Mass. 
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Chicago, 111. 
Hazelton, Penn. 
Boston, Mass. 
Chicago, 111. 
Portland, Oregon 
St. Louis, Mo. 
Gary, Ind. 



[158] 



X 



IMMIGRANT AND CITY WORK 



STANDING on the balcony of an immigrant station and watching 
foreign people as they come from the steerage through the gate of 
the land, one is impressed with the orderliness and dispatch with which 
women with shawls over their heads, mothers with children, and men 
with bundles are disposed of. It is a great system, this receiving of a 
multitude, with a rapid examination of every eye, the quick detection of 
disease, the decisive division of people into little groups, the bunking and 
feeding of those in detention. Banks to change money, courts to settle 
claims, clerks to sell lunches, agents with railroad tickets, all are at hand 
to facilitate the movement of the great army of strangers within the gates. 

Every care has been taken for their reception into the country. From 
a Governmental standpoint, one question only is in the minds of the 
officials: Have these people, in the light of immigrant laws, a right to 
come in? Once accepted, like all other races in the nation, they must 
shift for themselves. Four hundred thousand immigrants landed in, 1 888. 
Since 1 889 there have been other persons to meet the women and chil- 
dren, — the missionaries. Moved with sympathy for immigrants as they 
passed on to the checkered experiences of strangers in a strange land and 
with a desire to guide them past the pitfalls laid for their unwary steps, 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society opened immigrant Homes at 
ports of entry to the United States. 

Superstition, idolatry, Sabbath-breaking and anarchy accompanied 
this great throng. People feared lest the poison entering there should 
spread throughout . the life of the nation. After the assassination of 
President McKinley the additional motive of good Americans was self- 
preservation. Three lines of work were established by the Society during 
the next thirty years to meet the needs of the foreign born : The welcome 
at the gate, wliich was protective and preventive work, done with the help 

[159] 



of Immigrant Homes ; work to supplement the immigrant's adjustment to 
a new environment, through reHef work, education and medical missions ; 
Americanization work through well-developed, departmentalized Chris- 
tian social settlements. 

The Society has had two Immigrant Homes and the same type of 
work done by a department of two Deaconess Homes. At first it was 
difficult to get passes for the missionaries to the immigrant stations. The 
commissioners used every means of discouragement, saying that it was 
not a place where women could or should work. According to late 
reports, however, at New York alone there are several such workers. They 
soon were appreciated by the commissioners, and their assistance has 
become invaluable to the women and children. The requisite for this 
service is common sense coupled with kind hearts, while added experience 
gives them tact. The Homes are much alike in character. Considering 
the enormous number of people passing through the stations, the number 
of those left stranded on the edge of the shore does not seem overwhelm- 
ing. Yet the Homes very quickly fill up with girls who have imperfect 
addresses, with families detained by a sick child and with those who 
seek work in the vicinity of the Homes. 

The dangers for those people are not all physical. One of the 
requirements for entrance is that each person be equipped with not 
less than a certain sum of money. Knowing this, designing women would 
attempt to decoy girls to intelligence offices, where an exorbitant fee would 
be charged for finding them employment. There were other women 
whose designs were far more sinister, and who were harder to circumvent. 
It took women of poise and experience to keep track of the white slavers 
and prevent them from luring their victims to disaster. 

The Immigrant Home at Philadelphia was provided for a year only. 
The house was not well located nor adapted to the work. So the Con- 
ference Society enlarged the Philadelphia Deaconess Home and made 
immigrant work a department of the deaconess work. A large number 
of Polaks and Russians were coming. A deaconess met steamers and 
arranged for the shelter of one hundred and sixty girls and secured situa- 
tions for many of them during the first year. In 1 9 1 2 the old Detention 
House, a disgrace to civihzation, was done away with and the new 
immigrant quarters were placed at Gloucester, N. J. The work of the 

[160] 



department at Philadelphia has always been in a great success due to 
the faithfulness and ability of the specialized worker which the Confer- 
ence Society has supported there. 

New York Immigrant Home — ^January 1 4, 1 888, the Society 
opened a girls' lodging house near Castle Garden, the immigrant station 
at New York, before Ellis Island was opened. In 1 890 three thousand 
girls were sheltered and cared for in this Home. The next year No. 9 
State Street, a five-story commodious house, was rented. This stood 
near the barge office, where all discharged immigrants now land. When 
it was first opened the principal nationalities of the immigrants were Eng- 
lish, Scotch, Welsh, Irish and a large number of Italians. Ten years 
later thirty-three countries were represented by the newcomers. Many 
Finns began coming in 1 901 . All unmindful of the incongruity of plac- 
ing these women with shawls over their heads, from the fields of the Old 
World, in conventional homes to wait skillfully on table and deftly to 
handle delicate glass and china, people largely sought the immigrants as 
domestic servants. Yet, very soon these same awakened girls would don 
hat and coat selected with taste, and meet all the expectations of industry 
and thrift. 

In the winter months, when immigration was slight, the missionaries 
would conduct sewing schools for all sorts and conditions of people. A 
Swedish Sunday-school was organized and hundreds of garments, shoes 
and hats were given away to those within and outside the building. 

At the time of the Titanic disaster in 1912, the Woman's Relief 
Conunittee telegraphed for accommodations for steerage passengers on 
board the Carpathian, During the war there was a low number of 
immigrants, still Ellis Island received two thousand a week and there 
were several hundred women and children in the detention rooms. Some 
were public charges. Many got in before the war, but their cases were 
not settled. There still remains work for the women, although the 
Immigrant Home was closed in 1920, at the expiration of the lease. 
Another house has now been secured. 

Boston Immigrant Home — The Immigrant Home at 72-74 
Marginal Street, East Boston, was opened in 1890. The work had 

[161] 



begun two years earlier, but the large proportions outlined for this mib- 
sionary cause required time to bring plans to maturity. The $14,000 
Home secured had two salesrooms on the first floor, and fourteen rooms 
above. The furniture and fixtures for the Home and its chapel were 
donated by the Society's auxiliaries and by business firms of the city. 
That year it sheltered eight hundred and five people and secured employ- 
ment for seventy-five. In the early days of the immigrant arrivals, English- 
speaking people were in the majority. The name '^Immigrant Home" in 
large letters was placed over the door, while the name in small type 
beneath the sign was in the Swedish language. In later years the name of 
the Immigrant Home could well have been written in Yiddish. The 
Home was conveniently located, being opposite thd wharf of the Cunard 
liners. A missionary was also sent to Charlestown, where the Old 
Dominion Line discharged its passengers. The special interests to which 
the Boston corps of workers devoted themselves include relief for hus- 
bands and fathers with helpless infants whose mothers had died on the 
way over or soon after arrival. One woman enroute from Spokane, 
Wash., had a sick child and was glad to take refuge there. They received 
girls sick and dying. Often the dead were buried from the Home chapel, 
and brides were married there. The Swedes used the chapel for meet- 
ings. Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations added to the Christian 
atmosphere of the Home. Sewing classes of sixty girls of different nation- 
alities were conducted for them while in the Home. A quick rush of 
strangers often occurred. Once, an hour after the notice, fifty people 
were cared for. In 1902 the capacity of the Home was strained to 
the utmost. Ninety-five were sheltered in a night. The Swedish people 
had the largest representation. In 1 905 a Medical Mission was opened 
under the auspices of the Immigrant Bureau. 

The new Home so badly needed was dedicated in 1912. It is a 
handsome building of brick and granite, five stories high with eighty beds, 
costing $30,000, and surmounted by a granite cross outlined with electric 
lights. This can be seen far down the bay. Very difficult have been 
the war years for this branch of the service. So many children were left 
alone. Here and there was much sickness among them. They were so 
destitute of clothing and shoes. One mother had five fine boys, but only 
one pair of shoes for the lot. Another had six bare-footed little girls 

[162] 



Nine o'clock of Easter morning, 1917, sixty-seven women and children 
arrived, Portuguese, Greek, Italian, English and Polish. 

In 1 9 1 8 the Elast Boston Home had the task of caring for interned 
German women sent to them by the Government. Twenty of them were 
very sick, while a more distressed set of people would be hard to find. 
Their clothing, lost between Manila and Boston, was finally located. 
Doctors, lawyers, professional men, preachers, immigrant service men. 
Naval Reserve men and people of all nations in life were interested in 
these aliens. During extreme cold weather twenty-five Italian women 
and children arrived with very little clothing. 

Work at Angel Island — Previous to 1911 the steamer work 
at San Francisco was carried on by the missionaries of the Oriental Home. 
Most of the passengers were Japanese and Chinese. In 1912 the Immi- 
grant Station at Angel Island received all immigrants coming into the 
country through the Golden Gate. In response to a request from the 
National Department of Immigration, a deaconess from the Home in 
San Francisco served at the island. The first year forty-seven girls were 
definitely aided. Many of them were destitute girls who were deported. 
Many were Oriental and little could be done for them. The deaconess 
distributed Scripture texts printed on post cards in Chinese and other 
languages to the passing travelers. "Picture brides" constituted no 
small part of the missionary's task. The principal thing was to help 
them make arrangements for legal marriage in America. In spite 
of the war, regular boats from the Orient arrived each week at Angel 
Island. Panama boats, too, cast anchor there, bringing Mexicans, 
Jamaicans and South Americans. 

The missionaries in 1913 asked for good books in Otiental languages 
with which to start a library. During war time, while the number of 
incoming foreigners decreased on the Eastern seaboard, such was not the 
case at Angel Island. Oriental and Russian- Jev^sh immigration was 
as large as ever. Thirty-five different nationalities were represented at 
the port during the last year. 

The work of the missionary, preventive and protective as it was, did 
not help the foreign born to adapt herself to the new environment. That 
help was given through the mission centres located where the people 
from other lands segregated themselves. Many of these missions were 

[163] 



opened by Conferences for foreign-born people in their own section. 
They were patterned after one of the types of missions estabhshed by 
the National Society, as described in the next section. 

CITY SETTLEMENT WORK 

Glenn Home — When Glenn Home, Cincinnati, Ohio, was opened 
in 1 89 1 , the Society felt that it was the nearest approach to the ideal 
city mission within its control. For eighteen years no effort was spared 
to keep Glenn Home work in the front rank of city missions. The Home 
is a four-story brownstone house of fifteen rooms, on a quiet, residential 
street, where people of the wealthier class once lived. Parallel to this 
street ran the thoroughfares of the needy section of Cincinnati. The 
building, together with furnishings, was purchased for $12,000. Provi- 
sion for it came under the general rule for city work, — **the moneys for 
city missions should be a distinct fund and raised by means which would 
not interfere with the interests of the general treasury." The purpose 
of this work in those early days was quaintly expressed as follows: **To 
prepare a home for those who labor in the city. To help prepare mis- 
sionaries for service, to co-operate with other organizations in furnishing 
industrial training and securing employment for poor people, to be used 
as a depository for clothing and deHcacies for the sick." 

A year later the use of two buildings was donated by the **Big Four" 
Railroad for the branch work of Glenn Home, — one at the corner of 
Fifth and Front streets, known as Rhea Deakin Mission; the second 
on Ramsey Street. Kindergartens, mothers' meetings and sewing schools 
were opened. A coffee room at Rhea Deakin Mission was opened for 
the railroad men, where they could get hot coffee or lemonade, and find 
reading matter for their use during rest hours. 

Among the first enterprises of the Glenn Home Board was the Cin- 
cinnati Cooking Schools. This resulted in the establishment of cooking 
classes in the high and elementary schools of the city. The school board 
granted a room in the respective buildings and the ladies furnished kitchen 
outfits, as gas range, tables and cooking utensils. Being adept in making 
things go, and awakening interest in the city, the managers provided free 
instruction for a large number of pupils without the use of expensive 
teachers and appointments. The cost of this enterprise within three years 

[164] 



was $3,250, much of it paid by outside friends of the Society. The 
department work of Glenn Home was wonderfully developed and syste- 
matized. To fully appreciate the organization in detail would require 
intensive study. Its work stood on the roll in general as follows: 

( 1 ) Religious : Sunday-school and evangelical services at the Mis- 
sion. Annual baptism service. Missionary auxiliaries. 

(2) Educational: Three kindergartens, one at Glenn Home; one 
at the Mission on Front Street; one at Riverside Reading Room. 

(3) Industrial: Three sewing classes for little girls, a young ladies' 
industrial club for ages from sixteen to twenty. Two kitchen garden 
classes, and technical classes for boys. 

(4) Missionary: Glenn Home Auxiliary, children's band, mothers' 
club, city hospital visitation and distribution of flowers. 

(5) Social department. 

In 1897 a boarding department was added. This provided a Chris- 
tian Home that year for fifty girls at different periods. The Home 
co-operated with Juvenile Courts, and supervised outings and festivals. 

Besides the seven workers who gave all their time to the interests of 
the Home, there were sixteen special teachers and helpers. 

The Glenn Home work finally included service at three other centres. 
The Main Mission on Fourth Street, the Glenn Mission at Front and 
Fifth streets, and Riverside Cottage, back of the Fleischman distilleries. 
In 1910 this Riverside Mission took the form of a settlement. The 
kindergarten was abandoned and the principal feature was mothers' 
meetings. This idea was to help them to help themselves. 

Two years later the workers opened two associate missions, a kinder- 
garten across the river in Covington, and four private kindergartens in 
Cincinnati. This change was necessitated by additional building of the 
Big Four Railroad companies. 

In 1912 permission was granted the Glenn Home Board to collect 
$50,000 toward providing a new Home for girls; this done, the depart- 
mental work could be enlarged. Already they had divided the sewing 
classes into two groups of ninety each. The special mission of the Home 
was to furnish a Home for girls who had a wage below ten dollars a 

[165] 



week and guard them from cheap boarding houses which were often dens 
of vice under the cloak of respectabiKty. The new building, located on 
West Fourth Street, Cincinnati, was named Esther House, after Queen 
Esther girls, who gave $1 ,000 to name the large front room library. The 
old Home building was turned over to kindergartens, mothers' clubs, day 
nursery, club and reading room for West Side women and their guests, 
and at present is Friendship Home for Negro girls, supported by the 
Texas (Negro) Conference. The girls who have lived at Esther Home 
come from Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and 
New York. It has been a wonderful success as a Christian Home and 
social centre. Money is being collected and plans are matured for 
extended missionary work among little children and for the development 
of a social centre. A mothers' memorial building will be part of the 
equipment for this forward work. 

Anthracite Slavonic Mission — The Anthracite Slavonic Mis- 
sion Home is at Hazelton, Pa. Previous to 1 9J 3 it was on the list of the 
deaconess Homes, with Hazelton as a centre. The deaconess and mis- 
sionary pastor worked among the foreign peoples of the coal region. Very 
early foreign-born girls were trained to assist the deaconess. Buildings 
were secured for the mission Home, and in 1913 the Slavonic Home 
became a missionary institution. It was felt that this change would not 
only meet local needs more fully, but the broader opportunity would 
induce its friends to aid more generously with the mission work. Previous 
to this time sewing was the principal feature; one hundred and twenty- 
five girls went through the garment making class. The change to a mis- 
sionary institution made feasible a domestic science course and cooking 
classes, also an English department, which would hold as its aim the 
preparation of the foreign-born for seminary, high school and for business. 
A medical dispensary was a new department. Some of the serious cases 
were taken to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital at Philadelphia. 
The dispensary had no resident doctor, but the very best physicians in 
the town gave their services to the mission. 

In later years the greater number of people in mission classes were 
Polish and Slovak. The anthracite community to which the Home min- 
istered was large, and missions were established in a number of places. 
Among them was Berwick, where a Home was provided the mission by 

[166] 



the American Car and Foundry Company. Foreign women would come 
to weave rugs and carpets and tell the missionary their troubles. It became 
both the Home and the workshop of the mission. Other mission points 
included Zeddo, Stockton, Cramberry, Hollywood, Thomboldt, Beaver, 
Freeland and Meliusville. At Freeland there were one hundred Slavic 
girls in one cooking class. The classes in the mission stations consisted 
of cooking, sewing, embroidery, carpentry, English, Slovak, music, kin- 
dergarten, Junior League and Sunday-school. During the war these 
people made one of the most patriotic responses to needs of the times 
recorded in the annals of the Society. Two classes of boys and three of 
girls knit for the Red Cross. They had a large Red Cross auxiliary 
wholly of foreign girls and gave money for the Belgian Relief Fund. 
During the influenza epidemic the missionaries were most competent 
nurses. ■ ''; ''-I'l; '^t^'-^l'-^ 

The process of Americanization has been carried on for twenty-five 
years in this great foreign centre, yet conditions are such that every effort 
at the command of the missionary is needed to overcome vice conditions 
in these mining towns. 

Hull Street Settlement and Medical Mission — Relief in 
the way of food and clothing is very necessary and greatly appreciated 
by the immigrant. But if bodily ills continually w^ar down his physique, 
he is not in a fair way to adjust himself to any environment. Accord- 
ingly the Medical Mission at Hull Street, Boston, stands as a powerful 
aid to the foreign-born in his new start. 

In 1 892 three students at the Boston University School of Theology 
induced the City Missionary Society to open settlement work among the 
foreign people of Boston. This ** University Settlement" was located in 
the West End of the city, at Poplar Street. The work was social in 
character, with organized house-to-house visitations, distribution of flowers 
and young people's evening socials. The next year in the North End a 
house on Charter Street was rented by the City Society and furnished by 
the Epworth League of the District. This second mission was called 
"The Epworth League House and University Settlement." At Hull 
Street was the medical dispensary, an outgrowth of immigrant work. In 
1893 both West End and North End settlements came to Hull Street 
Mission, when the City Missionary Society withdrew and left the 

[167] 



Woman's Home Missionary Society to carry on the work. There were 
30,000 people in a radius of a mile and a half. The enlarged work 
included four departments, — educational, social, spiritual and medical. 
Clubs for boys and girls were early featured. The distinctive work was 
along medical lines. The medical department was thoroughly equipped 
with the latest surgical and medical appliances. It had there in' 1906 
thirty-two children, twenty of whom were cripples. Many ear, nose and 
throat operations were performed. The head of the department organ- 
ized a very important class in nurse training. The medical department 
workers consisted of head nurse, four pupil nurses, two internes and a 
volunteer staff of fifteen physicians. There was no vacation here. Day 
after day, night after night, these clinics were open. No call wa«; ever 
refused. 

In 1911 the nurse training department was dropped and nurses from 
the hospital at Newburyport were sent to take their district and dispensary 
work at Hull Street Mission. Later the hospital at Worcester and the 
deaconess hospital sent nurses also. Medical lectures were given to the 
women of the neighborhood. In that foreign district of 30,000 people 
the children swarmed the streets. Natural curiosity and sick spells had 
made the little ones familiar with the work of the medical mission. With 
childish propensity for imitation, the girls held imaginary cHnics on the 
doorsteps of the mission. Appreciative workers organized the children 
into a children's nurses' club. The Little Nurses' Class was a happy 
thought. They learned many useful lessons and wound bandages and 
carried home much useful information to their mothers. The children's 
work aroused interest in the entire community, even among the daily press. 

A dental cKnic was the latest addition to this Medical Mission. 

Marcy Center — Thirty years ago, in a dark room next to a saloon 
in Maxwell Street in Chicago, the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
opened a Sunday-school for the street roughs. The young people had 
never seen a Protestant Bible, nor been at a Protestant service before. 
Their parents were accustomed even to bury their dead without religious 
service. Five years later the little mission moved from the room owned 
by the saloonkeeper into its own small house, — ^which was light, clean 
and cheerful. 

Such was the humble beginning of Marcy Center, one of the best of 

[168] 



the Americanization agencies in our great cities. The Society willingly 
labored among all nationalities and creeds, but the line of work in Chicago 
was determined by the people who gathered in the Ghetto district. Marcy 
Center ministered first to the Bohemian, then to the Jew. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society was not alone in this enter- 
prise, for at first it was a joint affair of three organizations. The Mis- 
sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church paid the salary of a 
preacher to the Bohemians. The City Missionary Society of Chicago 
defrayed current expenses in part. The Woman's Home Missionary 
Society workers aided in the Sunday-school and in social and religious 
work. In 1889, however, after Marcy Home was built and Jews re- 
placed Bohemians, the appropriation of the Missionary Society was v/ith- 
drawn, the City Missionary Society withdrew its preacher and the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society was left alone amid 40,000 people, 
only 1 ,000 of whom were Americans. One source of help was the 
Elizabeth Harrison Kindergarten Association, which sustained the kin- 
dergarten at Marcy Home until it became self-supporting. The young 
people improved rapidly. The boys became more gentle in manner, the 
girls formed King's Daughters' Circles, the Industrial School was full. 
In these classes they repeated the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, 
the Psalms and the Lord's Prayer, so that those who did not attend church 
would grow familiar with those gems of Biblical Hterature. The reading 
room was well patronized and religious services were held in the 
language of the people. 

In five years the Society had the lot for a fine large building and was 
industriously laying aside the money to build. In 1895 the old house 
was moved to the back of the lot and a brick house three stories high, 
48 X 64 feet, was erected. Part of the house was rented until the expenses 
incurred could be diminished to a sum that could be conveniently carried 
for the time being. 

The new building was completed in March, 1 896. During the next 
two years 2,200 persons a month passed in and out of industrial classes, 
kindergarten and Sunday-school. 

A dispensary was opened, the sign for the dispensary being the gift 
of a Jewish friend. This soon became one of the best medical missions 
in the city. The staff of three physicians, one surgeon, and a district 

[169] 



nurse was increased to seven. An eye and ear specialist gave his time 
without charge, as did all the medical staff. During the years they 
handled from 3,668 to 7,600 cases yearly, mostly women and children. 
The clinics were held every afternoon, and tired doctors would have to 
lock the doors at six o'clock. One day a little boy got in after hours, 
however, with his little sister, for she had burned her arm and her mother 
had put black ink on it as **first aid." By 1906 the dispensary was 
self-supporting and had outgrown its quarters. The surgical cases were 
taken to the Marcy Center Ward at West End Hospital, and not until 
1910, when the entire building was remodeled, was the dispensary en- 
larged. The new quarters consisted of four office rooms and a large 
waiting room. 

The expense of these cases amounted to over $2,000. One thou- 
sand was paid by the National Woman's Home Missionary Society, 
$500 by Rock River Conference Woman's Home Missionary Society 
and $600 by the patients themselves. Conditions in Chicago in I 898 
were far from right. Sweatshops, low wages, long hours and child labor 
furnished the problems of old age and youth alike, hence taxed the 
strength and ingenuity of the workers to the limit. As the Jews and 
Roman Catholics increased in number, the direct religious teaching was 
not forced. 

Those experienced in settlement work know that different nationalities 
are not always congenial club members, even at a mission. The Jewish 
ladies of one street have their exclusive circles, the Italian ladies of 
the next square group themselves in another place. Lines are more sharply 
drawn than one would realize. It is not surprising then to read in the 
records of a Bohemian Mothers' Prayer Meeting and a Jewish Mothers' 
Club. There was intense antipathy between the Bohemian and the Jew. 
The Bohemian people were thrifty, anxious to own property, and moved 
away from the Ghetto as fast as they had savings to invest. Then the 
Russian and Polish Jews moved in. The latter would not come for direct 
religious teaching, but were delighted to take advantage of the kinder- 
garten, sewing classes, manual training and music lessons. The old cot- 
tage at the back of the lot was first rented, then used for kitchen garden, 
dressmaking and cooking classes, and was finally torn down and the space 

[170] 



where it stood used for a playground. By 1 900 there were eight resi- 
dent workers, some of them deaconesses. 

Not only was the dispensary well housed, but the day nursery was 
first-class, with its diet kitchen, its bath, its sleeping room and large play 
room. The workers kept a milk station in summer, a closet supply in 
winter, and provided outings during the hot summer months. During 
1914, thirty-two thousand nine hundred and ten had part in the activities 
of the Center. 

Outings in the country were popular. The children dearly loved to 
"see the cows' nests" and was surprised to learn that potatoes grew in 
the ground. 

A new feature of the work in 1 909 was evening educational classes 
for Jewish men and women recently arrived in the United States. Marcy 
Center also had a Saturday Bible class of Jewish children, with total 
enrollment of 2,349 pupils. The Marcy Center Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society auxiliary had twenty-five members, all Jewish mothers. 
In May, 1918, during the Baby Welfare Campaign, over 1,200 babies 
were measured and weighed, and 2,000 vaccinated at Marcy Center. 

The ambition of the Society for the settlement was to develop special- 
ized departments. These departments were doing prime work by 1907. 
They include today, medical and surgical v/ork, kindergarten, gymna- 
sium, sewing school, manual training classes, cooking school, musical 
training, boys' clubs (athletic, temperance and anti-cigarette leagues), 
department of societies and entertainments, penny bank clubs, 
domestic science, day nursery, night school, teacher training in the 
Sunday-school, kitchen garden and supply department. 

At the opening the work was called the Bohemian Mission because 
of the number of Bohemians within its zone of work. In later years it 
has been called the Jewish Mission. 

The corps of workers in this great Settlement includes a superintend- 
ent and associate, nurse, musical director, boys' director, missionary visi- 
tor, two internes and a cook. Students from Lewis Institute assist in the 
departments of sewing and domestic science, and outside physicians and 
surgeons are generous with their medical and surgical services. Marcy 
Center became the church, the court, the social and recreational centre 

[171] 



and refuge in the hour of need for the neighborhood in the Ghetto of 

^^'^^^''' i; M]!../1 liJ.i! 

A Vacation Bible School was also conducted by these good people. 
Fifteen nations were represented, among which were one hundred and 
fifteen Germans, eighty-seven Poles, sixty-three Irish, fifty-four Slavs, 
twenty-six Bohemians, as well as French, Italians, Austrians, Greek, 
Scotch, Americans, Lithuanians, Croatians and Jews. 

For some time there had been a desire to establish a Home for work- 
ing girls which would give them a good Home at moderate cost under 
Christian supervision. This was opened in 1912, and thirty girls could 
be accommodated at Hobbs House. Besides the mission centres, it gave 
help to five churches in the foreign district of the city. Later, through 
various adjustments, this was merged into Chicago Esther Home. 

Portland Settlement Center. — ^Work for and with the 
foreign-speaking people of Portland, Oregon, is an important feature of 
service in the Northwest. 

Epworth Home for Girls — Estatlished in St. Louis, Missouri, 
this constitutes a real Home for girls who, in many cases, have learned 
nothing of the meaning of the word before. Legally committed to its 
watchcare and training, wayward, erring lives are changed into true 
womanliness by the Christian influences there surrounding them. 

Campbell Settlement — This institution at Gary, Indiana, in the 
midst of a dense foreign environment in this great industrial center, is a 
daily demonstration of Christian Americanization. 



[172] 



The Reserve Army 



Children's Homes 



Name Location 

Mothers* Jewels York, Nebraska 

Watts de Peyster Tivoli, New York 

Peek Polo, Illinois 



[174] 



XI 



THE RESERVE ARMY 

V V •*• 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S DEPARTMENT 

WHEN the average mother goes out for the day she takes the chil- 
dren with her. Very shortly after the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society had started on its road to missionary endeavor, it called upon its 
young people to go too. The idea of Children's Bands or Mothers' 
Jewels came to women in various auxiHaries during the first six years of 
the Society's existence. Several early collected the little folks into mis- 
sion groups and began to raise money for scholarships with which to 
support beneficiaries of the Society. Attention was drawn to the greater 
possibilities of young people in missionary work by the following letter 
from a boy in Taunton, Mass. : 

9 Chester Avenue, 

Taunton, Mass. 
Dear Madam: 

Can you find time to read a letter from a workingman's little boy? 
I want to help your cause, and my father suggests that it would be a good 
thing to afford Methodist children the privilege of founding an Industrial 
Home and have the pleasure of giving the entire cost of purchasing a 
farm and paying for the building. In our great church there should be 
children enough to raise one dollar apiece for such good work, and then 
it could be called the Children's Home. I got nearly all the inclosed 
dollar by going on errands which I send, hoping it may stir up all our 
children to do likewise. 

Wishing you all success, I remain. 

Yours truly, 

Freddie Rawcliffe. 

As a result of this letter leaders of the Society decided to ask 
each girl and boy in the Methodist Episcopal Church to earn one dollar 



besides paying a membership fee of twenty-five cents, and to devote the 
proceeds to this noble proposition. 

The first official attention to developing this branch of service was 
given in 1 886. At the meeting of the Executive Board, previous to the 
Annual Meeting, Mrs. H. C McCabe suggested that the children be 
organized, as a distinct part of the work. They recommended, there- 
fore, that Mothers' Jewels be secured among babies and other children 
of six years old and under by the annual payment of one dime, and that 
this money be invested in the proposed Children's Industrial Home. 

Next a young ladies' Circle was proposed, — to gather young persons 
of sixteen and over to work for the cause. The management of the 
Circles was to be in the hands of the girls, with boys as honorary mem- 
bers. The dues were to be not less than fifty cents. 

Within a year Mothers' Jewels, Bands and Circles were in full 
swing. Queen Esthers, Merry Workers, Happy Gleaners, Busy Bees, 
Look-up Legions, Sunbeams, Sunshine Weavers and Morning Stars were 
coming into the Society by the hundreds. Sixty-four Conferences were 
contributing to the fund for the Mothers' Jewels Home, and the live 
question in the churches was, **Shall the new Mothers' Jewels' Home be 
on the frontier for orphans, or in the South for illiterate girls?" 

In 1 890 the Society realized that there must be a superintendent of 
Young People's work to keep the Bands and Circles alive, td furnish 
literature and entertainment, and where there was no Conference secretary 
of Young People's work, to organize new Jewels, Bands and Circles. 
More leaflets, a children's paper and a badge were planned for. 

The Bureau for Young People's Work was divided into three sec- 
tions in 1 893 : 

1. Circles for young ladies sixteen or over, to be called Queen 
Esthers, Lucy Hayes Circles, or Junior Auxiliaries. They were requested 
to work for the Lucy Webb Hayes Bible School at Washington. 

2. Missionary bands for girls and boys under sixteen. Their special 
work was to support beneficiaries in Industrial Homes or the Mothers' 
Jewels Home. This was called Student Aid. 

3. Mothers' Jewels for children under six, the dues to be used 
exclusively for the Mothers' Jewels Home. 

[176] 



Mass meetings for young people were held at Ocean Grove and else- 
where. The work was presented and the young people rallied to the call 
of Home Missions. 

In 1902 the Bureau of Young People's Work reported under two 
divisions, — the Young Woman's Work and Mother's Jewels and Home 
Guards, the latter taking the place of the more general name, Band. In 
1908 it was suggested that the name Bureau was misleading, in that 
^bureau" usually means a section of the work of the Society which 
receives a portion of the funds of the Society and applies it to the needs 
of its beneficiaries. The young women never were the object of the 
Society's work, but co-laborers together with the auxiliaries. Again it 
was misleading to class young men and women, boys and girls under the 
term young people. It was deemed wise, therefore, to divide the work 
into the Department of Young People's Work, and that of Home Guards 
and Mothers' Jewels, later known as the Department of Children's Work. 

This arrangement was followed throughout the entire connection, each 
Conference electing two secretaries, one for young people and one for 
children's work. The Department of Young People's Work requested 
the right of an evening session devoted to young women's work in the 
week of the Annual Meeting; that the Conference Secretary for young 
people represent her Conference as a delegate at least once in three 
years; that the reports of Young Women be made in harmony with 
those of the Senior Society. 

These recommendations, with some changes, were adopted later, the 
Conference Young People's Secretary being made an ex-officio delegate 
to the annual meeting. Young People's Rallies and Round Table Con- 
ferences were urged to stress systematic study, regular payment of dues, 
faithfulness and accuracy in reporting, and assuming definite pledges 
for legitimate work. General missionary spirit and Christian living 
were also stimulated. 

The Field Secretaries' work for the Young People's Department 
included visits to Epworth League meetings and camp meetings of the 
church, attendance at Lakeside Assembly at Lakeside, Ohio, and at 
Ocean Grove, Student Conferences of the American Committee of the 
Young Woman's Christian Association and conferences of the Young 
People's Missionary Movement, besides visits to district ojficers and 

[177] 



organization of auxiliaries wherever needed. The aim of the work has 
been to stimulate Circles already formed, to keep in touch with Ybung 
People's Home Missionary work in every form throughout the! country, 
and to strengthen weak places by suggestions and help. 

In 1912 two Field Secretaries were elected. Life memberships were 
created later, in honor of the department's tw^enty-fifth birthday. Any 
one paying fifteen dollars could become a Queen Esther life member of 
the Society. When the day arrived one thousand, one hundred young 
people had thus become life members. 

This money was used for the salaries of missionaries in Industrial 
Homes. The last three years the activities of the Young People's De- 
partment have included salaries for a missionary in Browning Home, 
Camden, S. C. ; Hull Street Medical Mission, Boston; and Bennett 
Academy, Mathiston, Miss. ; special pledges for Mothers' Jewels Home, 
York, Neb., and the Navajo School House at Farmington, N. M. ; the 
name of the library at Haven Home, Savannah, Ga. ; and cash for the 
hospital at Unalaska, for the Permanent Deaconess, and Permanent 
Missionary funds. There are now 1 78 Young Women's auxiliaries and 
2,198 Queen Esther Circles, with a total membership to date of 9,090. 
The grand total of money supplied by the Young People's Department 
in the fiscal year 1918 was $90,834.24. During the war time. Rock 
River Conference alone reported fifteen Queen Esther girls serving as 
nurses in hospitals of the United States and overseas. 

The Department of Children's Work has today 1 ,220 companies of 
Mothers' Jewels and 772 of Home Guards, with a total membership 
of 60,950. The total money raised by this department for the fiscal 
year 1919 was $1 7,371.26. The watchful support of thesei organiza- 
tions and the following out of the system of promotion from Jewels to 
Guards, from Guards to Circle, and on to auxiliary, is one of the most 
important duties of the individual members of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society. 

CHILDREN'S HOMES 

Mothers' Jewels Home— Much interest in the placement of the 
Mothers' Jewels Home was shown among the newly organized young 
people of the Woman's Home Missionary Society. The collection of 

[176] 



money for this Home was the impetus which gave the new department 
such a successful start. After much deliberation, York, Neb., was chosen 
for the location. York at that time had a population of 5,000 people, 
good schools, good churches, commodious homes, electric lights, and not 
a drop of liquor in the place. Such an ideal location commended itself 
very highly to the committee in charge. At the call of the Board of 
Trade, citizens assembled to meet the ladies of the Society, Mrs. Ida 
Clark and Mrs. Aiken, and agreed to raise $10,000 for the Home to 
be located one mile from their centre, the site to include at least one 
hundred and sixty acres. The city further agreed to arrange for the 
disposal of a farm at Postville, which had been donated by a Dr. Arm- 
strong. Dr. Armstrong and the little waifs which he had gathered 
together some time before were brought to the new Home. 

The Mothers' Jewels Home was not to be an orphanage in the 
accepted sense, but rather a Christian Industrial Home, admitting any 
nationality without regard to sect. The Society felt that in founding 
this institution in the West it would give a greater opening to the children, 
as the growing West was best adapted to children's development and 
offered good prospects to youthful initiative. The first report from the 
Home ( 1 894) stated that the year began with the small Home hospital 
full of little patients and closed with fifty children well and strong. They 
plotted and seeded the farm, but burning, blistering wind^ came upon 
the young crops, and instead of a Harvest Home festival the Mothers' 
Jewels had empty cellar and bin. Among the early comers to the Home 
was a little Sioux Indian girl called Wachika (Kttle one), rescued by a 
missionary to the Rosebud Indains. A little Alaskan Boy, Ivan Pen- 
koff, came two years later. The pride and pet of all the children, he 
died in 1 899 of tuberculosis, the dread malady of his race. Early gifts 
to this orphanage included a piano, free music lessons for the girls, and 
two and one-half acres of land for fruit and flowers. 

Children did not always remain permanently in the Home, but v/ere 
placed in Christian homes whenever such an opportunity arose. During 
fifteen years as many as one hundred and sixteen have gone through the 
Home in a year, and the static number has reached eighty. One year 
children were received from Alaska, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Utah, 
Montana and Indiana. Thirty-three were Americans. The rest were 

[179] 



Germans, Bohemians, Irish and Scandinavians. The majority of them 
were between five and nine years old. The youngest arrival was an infant 
ten days old, found rolled up in an old shawl near a railroad station at 
York. By request of the city mayor and attorney the babe was given to 
the Mothers' Jewels Home. In 1915 the small hospital cottage was 
turned into a baby-fold for the seventeen children below five years old. 
Not only babies were taken into the Home. One of the first lads to 
prove the '*stuff that was in him" was six feet high. He did so well 
at school that an opportunity was made for him to attend the Commercial 
College at Burlington, Iowa. 

Thirty-five children were sent to the York pubHc school. By and 
by the number increased. Then the city school board requested the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society to supply one teacher, as the number 
of children sent from the Home made it necessary to hire an extra one. 
To save this expense the children of the first five, and later of the first 
seven, grades were taught at home by the kindergarten teacher, — the 
oldest girl in the Home assisting her. 

The Mothers' Jewels children had industrial training. The boys 
helped with farming, garden work and care of the grounds. They pre- 
pared vegetables for cooking, swept, carried water and assisted with the 
laundry. The girls learned to sew, to cook, and to help in dining room 
and laundry, and were given music lessons. The kindergarten averaged 
sixty-three. 

The workers were not forgetful of the policy of training for self- 
support. Broom-making, shoe and harness repairing, and chair caning 
industries were launched. Domestic science became part of the curric- 
ulum. Little clubs to teach Christianity to the children were formed, 
i iie girls had "Peacemaker" clubs; the boys "I am His" clubs. Besides 
the faithful service of Mr. and Mrs. Spurlock, the corps of workers 
included an assistant superintendent and teachers, one of whom was a 
deaconess and a kindergartner. 

In 1 904 the Home was visited with smallpox and whooping cough. 

The land and buildings of Mothers' Jewels Home comprised in 1 906 
one hundred and seventy-two acres of land laid out in campus, vegetable 
and floral gardens, vineyard, orchards and farm, and four buildings, — 

[180] 



the main building, Memorial Hall, a three-story brick building; the farm 
cottage, a square frame building used as an older boys' dormitory, kitchen 
and dining room; Stare Cottage, across the street, used for the kinder- 
garten; and the hospital, an enlarged cottage finally used for the *'baby 
fold/' Last, but not least, were the Harnley Pavilion and flower garden. 
This two and a half acres was given by an old gentleman known as 
Father Harnley for the children's own flower planting. It had an orchard 
in the rear. Since 1906 money has been gradually collected for a new 
wing to the Home, to be known as Spurlock Hall. The outbreak of 
the war necessitated postponing this much-needed addition and Mothers' 
Jewels Home stands today as in 1906, with two exceptions. In 1915 
the loyal peoplei of York spent money in thorough repairs, when a new 
laundry and heating plant were installed, a cement foundation to the 
boys' cottage was laid, and a fine porch was built across one side. In 
1911 the Home received a one hundred and sixty acre farm not far from 
York, its value being at least $20,000. The Mothers' Jewels Home, 
worth $10,000 when opened, is now valued at $50,000. 

Watts DE Peyster Home — The Watts de Peyster Home in 
Tivoli, N. Y., was given to the Woman's Home Missionary Society in 
1 894 by Colonel Watts de Peyster, in honor of his Methodist ancestry. 
It is situated on a ridge overlooking the Hudson, opposite the Catskills. 
This rambling old house was used as a boarding school for boys before 
it came into the hands of the missionary society. At first the Society 
placed Italian girls from New York City in the Home, but during later 
years any needy girl has been admitted if there was room. The sad 
history of these girls is carefully buried in the regular life, faithful instruc- 
tion, and firm but kindly discipline of the Home. Very shortly they 
show marked change in their physical condition and spiritual life. Girls 
as young as seven years are taken and they stay until eighteen. The 
general average of fifty girls all study hard and learn sewing and cooking. 

A statistical report of sixty-five girls in the Home is as follows: 
Thirty-seven Americans, ten German, ten Italian, four Irish, three Eng- 
lish and one Slavic girl. Among the gifts that have enriched the Home 
and broadened its opportunity for service are: Nine acres more from 
Colonel Watts de Peyster, so as to secure a good pond for the property ; 
furniture and china from the Fisk family; and $15,000 from Mr. B. L. 

[ 181 ] 



Hoge, the interest of which was to be used to support girls in the Home. 
Years previous to the gift, Mr. Hoge supported six girls in the Home. 
The girls sleep in dormitories, with the exception of the few older ones. 
A bright, cheerful nursery is provided for the wee girls. Down the slope 
from the main building is a small but perfectly equipped hospital. 

Peek Orphanage — The latest addition to the Children's Homes 
of the Society is Peek Orphanage, opened in 1916. The property con- 
sists of one hundred and fifty-six acres of land, four and a half miles 
from Polo, 111., and a Home already outgrown. This was the gift of 
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Peek of Polo. 

In 1916 the Children's Homes were formed into a Bureau for Chil- 
dren's Homes and were thus brought under the oversight and care of a 
Bureau Secretary. A Negro War Orphanage has been determined upon 
to be paid for from the surplus war fund of the Society. Money has 
been appropriated, but the location for this splendid project has not been 
determined upon. 

Conference Children's Homes — As a matter of course, this 
form of work makes a strong appeal to mother-hearts, and several 
orphanages and children's Homes are supported by Conference organi- 
zations. Among these are Cunningham Orphanage, Urbana, 111. ; 
Bradley Orphanage, Hulton, Penn. ; and David and Margaret Home, 
Lordsburg, Cal. ) 



I 182 ] 



Highways and Byways 



XII 



HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 

•5c* •Jt* V 

DEPARTMENT OF FIELD WORK 

AFTER the first few years, when the pioneer work was over and the 
^ Society had Conferences organized, mission fields entered and 
Woman's Home Missionary Hterature and leaflets off the press, the lead- 
ers met and compared reports and took account of the strength and weak- 
ness of the great work which the Society had laid upon itself to do. They 
were proud indeed of the showing of the results of five short years. 
There were many Conferences, however, that were not fully organized, 
as the term is used today. 

At present the entire scheme of organization calls for auxiliaries. 
Children's and Young People's Societies, District and Conference organi- 
zations. This carries with it payment of dues, subscriptions to Woman s 
and Children s Home Missions and leaflet literature, payment of special 
pledges and recognitions of calls, evangelism and the Day of Prayer, the 
thank offerings, and the emergency funds. 

Any woman, young woman or child is a member of the Society 
who pays its dues. By entering the Society, which exists for the purpose 
of supporting mission work in the Homeland, a woman tacitly agrees to 
give as much as her means will allow toward special pledges. It is 
assumed that she will not pass by, the opportunity to subscribe to the 
magazine and to help in the emergencies which lay tribute on the sym- 
pathy and generosity of Christian women. That they may not fail in this 
supreme privilege, and in thankfulness for the task which God has 
assigned them, the members of the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
observe an annual Day of Prayer. In 1917 the Lenten offering was 
established, to be brought in on Good Friday. It should be a sacrificial 
offering. This day is now Decision Day in the Homes and Schools 
and Life Service Day in the Young People's societies. 

[185] 



In 1 889 a committee was appointed to organize the work as far as 
possible in the yet unorganized Conferences, and to place before the 
indifferent the appeal of Home Missions through personal persuasion and 
the distribution of leaflets. The first organizer was Mrs. Col. Springer. 
Two National organizers were at work in 1 894. One reported on the 
committee of organization and one on the field at large. As the field 
grew and new Conferences were organized more Field Secretaries were 
necessary. Conferences often arranged for a woman living in the terri- 
tory to be made organizer. She had authority by appointment of the 
executive board to present the work, and being resident in the section, 
she could more easily continue a fostering relationship toward newly 
organized Conference societies. 

In 1 898 there were three organizers, Mrs. B. S. Potter, Mrs. M. L. 
Woodruff and Mrs. C. W. Gallagher, besides a deaconess at large. Miss 
Iva May Durham. The deaconess' special work was the enlisting of 
pupils for training schools. In 1897 Prof. Henrietta Bancroft was 
elected Field Secretary for deaconess work, her duties being the estab- 
lishing and supervising of Deaconess Homes. 

Many other consecrated women were duly elected organizers. They 
traveled thousands of miles. As one said, **No woman could travel 
those distances in the interests of mission work without having experi- 
ences." Some were best forgotten, while others were worthy of a cher- 
ished memory. The conmion lot of all these good women was to travel 
at all hours, in winter and summer heat; on passenger an(| freight cars; 
in trolley, auto and auto stage ; in buggy, stage-coach and road wagon ; 
and on foot; through sandstorm, wind, snow and rain. Through it all 
they bravely went to prescribe what Mrs. Cotton Mather called **the- 
cure-for-ignorance powders in the shape of study books, papers and leaf- 
lets." Oftentimes it was difficult to understand the cause for a refusal 
to be allowed to present Home Missions, especially when the few oppo- 
nents seemed so devoted to the general cause of Church Missions. One 
minister, on being asked if the representative could organize the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society in his church, replied, **No, indeed! Why, 
this is Home Mission ground. The Board of Home Missions pays part 
of my salary. Besides, it would spoil my Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Society. Why, my women sent $500 to the foreign field last year." 

[186] 



Mrs. D. C. Geggie, as general organizer, addressed Sunday-schools 
on tithing whenever the way opened. In one year she secured 1,712 
little tithers under twelve years of age. In 1901 Mrs. M. L. Woodruff 
used the happy plan of giving stereopticon lectures, which she declared 
proved to be better than word pictures to present the conditions of the 
homeland. Even though provision has been made for the promotion of 
the children and young people into adult societies as they reach maturity, 
there is and will be a great field for new organizations of Woman's Home 
Missionary Societies in the United States. The great number of organi- 
zations already has added tremendous wealth and power to the Society, 
but its field and work have grown apace. Since 1916 this organization 
work has become a department of Field Work, with a Department Secre- 
tary and a committee. It consists of a corps of Field Secretaries, a 
Student Secretary, and speakers at large. 

In 1918 six regular Secretaries and three Reserve Secretaries were 
appointed to the department of Field Work. Seventeen Negro Confer- 
ences were cared for by the Negro secretary, Mrs. Bulkley. The General 
Secretary was to go anywhere in the field at all times, her salary to be 
paid by the General Society, and her expenses to be paid by the Con- 
ference which she served. The Conference Field Secretary was elected 
by the Conference and confirmed by the Board of Trustees, the salary and 
expenses being met by the Conference. Authorized speakers are those 
on whom the department of Field Work can call for service where needed. 

Schools of Missions — ^An enlargement of the task of the depart- 
ment of Field Work has come about with the growth of summer schools 
of missions, both Methodist and inter-denominational, of student confer- 
ences and the demand for specially trained leaders in religious work. 

Summer schools are the training camps of Missionary Societies and 
are admirably equipped at this time to prepare leaders for the reconstruc- 
tion work of the nation. Two kinds of schools have been visited by the 
secretaries of the department of Field Work of the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society — the denominational and the inter-denominational. 
Among the Methodist schools are Ocean Grove, N. J. held under the 
joint leadership of the Woman's Home and Foreign Missionary societies. 
The meetings here are purely program meetings, with no study classes. At 
Lakeside, Ohio, the Woman's Home Missionary Society has its head- 

[187] 



quarters. In 1915 a specially successful school of Home Missions was 
held here as well as a Bible Conference and school of methods for Sun- 
day-school workers. The summer school at Lancaster was cared for by 
the women of the Ohio Conference. Other schools have been opened at 
Bay View and Epworth Heights, Mich. 

Among the inter-denominational schools which attract young people 
and mission workers from all the churches are: The Chautauqua Home 
Mission Institute, under the direction and care of the Council of Women 
for Home Missions, where the Methodists have a Methodist House; 
Northfield, Mass. ; a summer school at Winona, Ind., near Lake Geneva, 
where fifteen different denominations have enrolled; at Boulder, Colo., 
where people come from twenty states and Mission Home and girls' 
camp are the outstanding features; at Mount Hermon Federate School 
in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Cal. ; at Minneapolis and in Oklahoma. 

College Work — In 1 9 1 a Student Secretary was appointed foi 
work among Methodist Episcopal students in schools and colleges, her 
duty being to come into personal contact with Methodist college girls 
through visits to colleges and to Young Women's Christian Association 
Conferences; to secure the interest and co-operation of the local auxili- 
aries ; to do follow-up work after the student has graduated, keeping in 
touch with her until she is a member or leader in an organization of 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society. No appropriation for traveling 
was made, so the Student Secretary took the first year to place on file 
whenever possible the names of undergraduates who were desirous of 
entering some form of Home Mission work, and names and data concern- 
ing Methodist girls who were alumnae and wished to enter the Home 
Mission field. They were put in touch with District and Conference 
officers. She sent out literature and made ten visits to nearby colleges. 

Data gathered in 1913 revealed the fact that 120,000 girls were 
in colleges, fifty-four of which were Methodist colleges, and there were 
besides many secondary and mission schools. To get in touch with the 
girls was a task. The general religious interest of girls in colleges is with 
the Young Women's Christian Association. To reach Methodist girls 
the Student Secretary sought an opening there with the Association. The 
largest opening was through the summer conferences of the Young 
Women's Christian Association. At that time this organization held 

[188] 



summer conferences in seven states, — North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New 
York, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oregon and Colifornia. The Student Sec- 
retary of the Woman's Home Missionary Society in 1918 stated that it 
was difficult to reach State Universities, because there was no point of 
contact, as in other institutions of learning. Workers were accustomed to 
call these State Universities, **The neglected continent in the Methodist 
world." 

Kappa Phi clubs have been organized in State Universities. These 
are open to any girl who is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
or who is from a Methodist Home or prefers the Methodist church while 
in college. The motto reveals the purpose of the club, ** Every univer- 
sity woman of today a leader in the church of tomorrow." The duty of 
the auxiliary members is to search out every Methodist college girl in the 
community and put her in touch with the Kappa Phi Club. The Kappa 
Phi clubs link up with the Woman's Home Missionary Society through 
the study of its work. A very important phase of the Field Work in 
latter years is the attendance of the secretary at camp meetings, summer 
schools and assemblies. The Eield Secretary has emphasized this method 
as effective in keeping the work before people at a season when visiting 
churches is impracticable, and as a further means of reaching those who 
otherwise would not be reached. 



[189] 



Methods 



XIII 



METHODS 

•5P v v 

CHRISTIAN Stewardship— It might be supposed that forty years of 
collecting money and building up an intricate organization whereby 
women in one part of the country were affiliated with women in another 
part of the country in a million-dollar business, or that the enormous detail 
of purchasing property, remodelling and building homes, problems of 
shipping, rentals and insurance, would force to the background those 
saintly qualities which the world expects of Christian women. That this 
did not happen is due in part to methods which the Society adopted, and 
to the calibre of its women. Under the Department of Methods are 
listed standing committees on Christian Stewardship, Evangelism and 
Inter-Denominational Day of Prayer. These committees worked side 
by side with those who carried on membership campaigns, who sought 
missionary candidates and who distributed mite-boxes. Praying and 
money raising were done together. Women sought new members with 
the tale of Christ's sufi^ering little ones on their hps. The whole appeal 
of the army of workers was, **It is of the Lord." 

Hebrew stewardship began away back in the time of Abraham, when 
one-tenth was laid aside for Jehovah. Christian stewardship began with 
Christ's giving his all for those who were in dire need. The custom of 
tithing was encouraged by the Woman's Home Missionary Society from 
the days of the Society's inception. It ranges in its demands upon con- 
science from the pennies of the Mothers' Jewels to all that consecrated 
women can secure for the work of the Lord in Home Mission Fields. 

Evangelism — The committee on Evangelism has labored unceas- 
ingly to increase the number of spirit-filled intercessors. Keeping before 
the busy workers the law, "Without prayer ye can do nothing," it has 
sought to encourage Bible study and has distributed prayer Hterature. 
The observance of the * 'morning watch" and noontide prayer was inaugu- 

[ 193 ] 



rated under evangelistic auspices. Cottage prayer meetings and the re- 
establishment of family altar worship has been emphasized by this branch 
of the Society. 

Special Days — The Thank Offering was inaugurated in 1890. 
In 1893 three ladies were appointed to prepare a program for Thank 
Offering Day, which was to be the third Thursday in November, or as 
near that day as was practicable. It was the custom of members of 
auxiliaries to meet for this special service of thanksgiving and to lay upon 
the altar whatsoever they could bring as their offering. The Thank 
Offering was reserved for missionaries' salaries by later action. 

Previous to 1 892 Mrs. J. P. Negus had been influential in establish- 
ing a Day of Prayer throughout the auxiliaries in her conference. This 
day proved so profitable that the Northwest Iowa Conference sent a 
memorial to the Annual Meeting in 1 893 inviting all the Conferences to 
join in a special day of prayer for the work which the Society was led 
to do, for its mission fields, its missionaries and the children under its care. 
In 1 894 a general call was given to all the Home Missionary societies 
of all denominations to join in an inter-denominational day of prayer. 
For twenty-five years the Woman's Home Missionary Society designated 
the last Thursday in February for special services for confession and 
prayer, but in 1 9 1 8, by order of the Board of Trustees, the time for this 
day of prayer was changed to the inter-denominational date, then placed 
in November. 

Membership campaigns have been carried on from time to time to 
increase the enrollment under the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
standard. Aside from securing these members, was the delicate task 
of training them to pay their dues at an early date. This has led to an 
informal selection of September as Dues-Paying Day. Much depends 
on the ingenuity of the leaders in this work to arouse enthusiasm and gain 
an impetus for the campaign that will carry it to a successful issue. The 
work for recruits among the Mothers' Jewels and Home Guards has 
always been appreciated. 

Life membership, whereby an auxiliary selects a specially faithful 
worker from its number and by paying twenty dollars makes her a life 
member of the Society, has been stressed by the managers of this work. 
A membership campaign inaugurated in 1915 led up to the celebration 

[194] 



of the Society's fortieth birthday, June, 1 920. As a gift to the Society, 
40,000 new, paid members were to be sought during the anniversary year, 
the minimum gift for each Conference to be four hundred recruits. 

Permanent Funds — ^A permanent missionary as well as deaconess 
fund has been established. The income from this fund is used for 
missionaries who may need rest or medical attention. 

Perpetual Membership — The annuity idea has taken form in 
the Perpetual Membership Fund. Any woman can become a Perpetual 
Member of the Woman's Home Missionary Society on the payment of 
$30 into its general treasury. The interest on this sun\ is used to pay 
the annual dues of said member into the auxiliary treasury where the 
membership is held, and this payment goes on after her death. 

Missionary Candidates — It is a task of great responsibility to 
secure adaptable workers for the Homes, schools and mission stations oi 
the Society, besides teachers, matrons and superintendents for other insti- 
tutions under its jurisdiction. In early years missionary teachers were 
reported by the Corresponding Secretary as having started work in the 
Southland. In 1 883 the Committee on Missionary Candidates made its 
first report. Seventeen women were ready to go into Home Mission work 
when called. The next year thirty-five names were on the waiting list. 
As fast as the work was opened up these waiting missionaries were placed. 
As years went by, faithful workers dropped by the wayside. There was 
a growing need for more workers, both to replace those whose hands 
were folded and to fill new places where the work had enlarged. The 
committee had no appointing power, but recommended workers to tk 
Bureau Secretaries. The individual candidate was required to secure 
the approval of her Conference officers before being recommended by the 
Candidate Committee. The requirements for service were consecration 
to the spiritual uplift of humanity, good health, education, social qualities 
which would make the worker agreeable to live with and work with, and 
a willingness to remain at her post so long as conditions were satisfactory 
to all concerned. 

Missionary Education — This department was created in 1917, 
succeeding that of Reading Circles which had been successfully carried 
on for several years. Its aims have been stated as follows: *'To give 
a knowledge of missionary facts and problems: to rouse the interest of 

[195] 



women in Home Missions." The first year 12,559 readers of mission- 
ary textbooks and leaflets were reported from reading circles and study 
classes. Five hundred diplomas were awarded to those who had done 
the required reading. Two kinds of readers were recognized by the 
department, — those who read the textbook only, and those who read the 
required textbooks. Woman s Home Missions, and selected supplementary 
reading for three years. Honor emblems, pennants and diplomas are 
among the awards offered by the department. 

Temperance — The Woman's Home Missionary Society very early 
met the results of intemperance on the fields where poverty, sin and ignor- 
ance locked arms to defeat its righteous purpose. It taught httle children 
to beware of the destroyer, befriended the destitute wife of the drunkard, 
and took measures to undo the results of the evil habit which yearly fast- 
ened itself on more people. By 1 905 a Department of Temperance was 
organized to carry on the fight against all forms of intemperance that in 
any way undermined the home. At first the leaders of the department 
adopted the **do everything" method, until a definite type of temperance 
work could be determined upon as most effective. The following efforts 
were made during this period, through petitions and correspondence, in 
connection with other organizations: *'To prevent the violation of the 
Prohibition Law by interstate commercial facilities"; "to prevent the 
sale of liquor on ships, in parks and public buildings"; **to continue 
Prohibition for Indians in Oklahoma"; **to secure Sunday closing for 
the Jamestown Centennial Exposition"; **to submit to President 
Roosevelt a petition for a universal treaty of nations to forbid the 
sale of intoxicating liquors and opium to savage races." The organization 
of the Woman's Home Missionary Society lent itself most readily to the 
circulating of petitions. Seventeen Conferences had secretaries of tem- 
perance. Petitions were signed and sent in from each Conference when 
the Department of Temperance gave the word. On demand, yards of 
such petitions would be sent to the National Capitol. In 1914 four 
petitions were circulated and forwarded to the proper authorities : 1 . For 
National Constitutional Prohibition. 2. For Child Labor Protection. 
3. For Reinstating the Bible in the Public Schools of Illinois. 4. For 
the Establishing of Police Matrons. This department held meet- 
ings in jails and penitentiaries, and distributed Bibles and temperance 
literature. 

[196] 



In 1917 the Woman's Home Missionary Society helped to win 
Prohibition for Porto Rico. It sent in a petition asking for the ceasing 
of exportation of rum to Africa. The women distributed 1 46,61 6 pages 
of free temperance literature. One of its leaders spent $5,000 of her 
own money to help stamp out the liquor traffic. In 1917 the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society sent a petition again to the House of Repre- 
sentatives calling attention to the wise examples of Russia, Alaska and 
Porto Rico. In 1 9 1 8 its members who had the franchise, helped elect 
men to state legislatures who were pledged to vote for the Constitutional 
Prohibition Amendment. The Society sent out pleas for War-Time Pro- 
hibition. It urges and secures temperance teaching in Sunday-schools, 
and co-operates with other temperance organizations in securing scientific 
temperance instruction in public schools. Gold medals in some places 
have been awarded for prize essays on temperance. 

War Work — There could be no finer illustration of the results of 
the work of the Woman's Home Missionary Society than in the patriotic 
response of its wards to the call to the colors during the World War. 
Indian boys from the plains, Negro boys from the schools, lads from 
the orphanages and members of the settlement clubs, all marched away 
to serve their country. Not only did student girls go into service, but 
Queen Esther girls from the Society at large served at home and abroad 
as nurses. While the work of the Society was largely of the type required 
to keep home fires burning, all the time, energy and money that could 
possibly be spared was devoted to war work. No new enterprise was 
started. Wherever they could mark time in the march toward bigger 
things they did so. Wherever sacrifice could be carried beyond the slen- 
der margin to which the Homes were accustomed, they retrenched. While 
service flags v/aved over portals, those remaining worked for the Red 
Cross. 

The General Society opened every possible channel to war work. 
On November 23, 1917, a joint meeting of officials of the Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Society and the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
was held in Philadelphia. It was decided to create **The Woman's 
War Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church," composed of three 
official representatives of each society, together with three women from 
the church at large. The council was to have no executive authority, but 

[197] 



to act as a clearing house for the war work of both societies, each society 
working out its own plans. Five sessions of the Woman's War Council 
were held. The ladies representing the Woman's Home Missionaiy 
Society were Mrs. M. L. Woodruff, Mrs. Mary Fisk Park and Mrs. 
D. B. Street. 

One of the most serious problems before the nation was what to do 
with the mothers, wives and sweethearts of the soldiers in camp. They 
were anxious to be as near their soldiers as possible. Some Methodist 
hostess houses were built by the Board of Home Missions and Church 
Extension, and in these the Woman's Home Missionary Society sup- 
ported deaconesses and mission workers. An outstanding work was at 
Camp Dix, where the Society equipped and conducted the Center built 
by the Board of Home Missions. Another important field was at the 
Great Lakes Training Station. 

At some places layettes and children's clothes were in demand. 
Travelers' Aid deaconesses were at hand. At Des Moines, Iowa, a 
Home was opened for girls and seven deaconesses were at work. Twenty- 
eight camp and war workers were kept busy. The Boston Immigrant 
Home cared for interned women and children. Orphans were taken into 
the Children's Homes of the Society. 

A conditional appropriation of $50,000 for 1918-19 was made. 
Each member was asked for sixty cents a year, each Queen Esther girl 
to give twenty-five cents a year. Ten cents and five cents were asked from 
the Home Guards and Mothers' Jewels respectively. 

Centenary Co-operation — The Society pledged to support 
every part of the Methodist Centenary Campaign and stressed the pro- 
gram of stewardship, of prayer and of life service. 

Department of Literature — A bureau of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society implies some part of the mission field for which 
an appropriation is made for maintaining work there. This field is also 
the recipient of pledge money and special gifts. The Departments may 
include a number of bureaus, such as the Deaconess Department or the 
Department of Bureaus and Standing Committees of Homes, Schools 
and Mission Stations; or they may be organic divisions of the Society, 
such as the Young People's Department or the Children's Department, 

[198] 



not receiving moneys, but instead helping to support work on the mission 
field. The Immigrant Department does not have a specific mission field, 
but includes relief work at the ports of entry in San Francisco, New 
York and Boston. This peculiar and exacting ministration to thousands 
is quite field enough for mission work and receives an appropriation. 
Three other departments claim the attention of the student of Home 
Mission history, for without them the work would suffer from stagnation, 
from financial depression and from indifference. 

A history of the Department of Literature includes that of Woman s 
Home Missions, Children s Home Missions, general publications, and 
the annual report. 

Woman's Home Missions — This, the official organ of the Society, 
was provided for in 1 884. Those women of early days who had genius 
for organization as well as missionary! fervor, decided that an official 
organ was essential to the work. Its purpose would be to acknowledge 
receipts of money and goods, to give information of new organizations, 
and to furnish interesting letters from missionaries concerning their fields. 
It would communicate also valuable information to the church in regard 
to the extent and work of the Society. Mrs. McCabe's story of how the 
first editor was chosen for this ambitious program is of historical interest : 
*'I sat by, an observer. Two ladies raised their heads from a close con- 
sultation. Mrs. Whetstone said, *I move the Woman's Home Mission^ 
ary Society have a paper, of which Mrs. Bugbee and Mrs. McCabe shall 
be editors.' My heart stood still at being brought to a decision. During 
the silence, Mrs. Davis, Chairman, arose from her seat and in a whisper 
said, *Calista, don't you refuse. It is of the Lord.' Well, I used to edit 
the paper for our literary club, so I accepted. Mrs. S. B. Thomson 
appeared to my mind. I selected her as publisher and put on my wraps 
and went and told her so. She declined ; thought it was new work, and 
did not like any more public burdens. She inquired if we would be 
responsible for the debts of the paper. I said, 'Yes ; We sign the contract, 
but the Executive Board is back of us and will never let us go to prison.' 
Next an old friend of mine showed me the types to use in this and that 
instance, and showed me how to make up a 'dummy.' A saintly woman 
in my Home suggested the first poem, *Do Ye Nexte Thynge!' and the 
Central Life Insurance Company gave us the first advertisement. The 

[199] 



second brought in fifty dollars, for an advertisement from Mr. James 
DeCamp. According to printers' judgment, the first issue was pret- 
tier than all that have followed." 

The publication interests were judiciously managed and Woman s 
Home Missions paid all expenses from the beginning. The first issue 
was a modest monthly of eight pages, three of which were devoted to 
advertising. The subscription price was twenty-five cents. A list ol 
six hundred names came in. The first set came from Evanston, 111., and 
Woman's Home Missions opened a bank deposit of $4.50. That first 
cornerstone list included six cities: Evanston, Cincinnati, Anamosa, Bos- 
ton, Reno and Peru. By the end of the year 4,500 names were on the 
mailing list. The editor and publisher soon became aware that Woman's 
Home Missions people were pushing the subscription list with enthusiasm, 
and that people in general were both ignorant and indifferent about the 
homeland. The next year Mr. J. R. Wright gave the paper a maiHng 
machine. The paper, still twenty-five cents a year, was doubled to 
sixteen pages. 

Some of the early problems in meeting expenses included the great 
question as to whether they should go back to smaller size, or raise the 
subscription to thirty-five cents, or ask for appropriations from general 
funds, or give more space to advertisements. A standing business com- 
mittee of three was formed to whom a financial report was made monthly. 
Remuneration of the publisher and editor was fixed at three hundred 
dollars each, and for an assistant two hundred dollars. All ladies were 
urged to secure subscriptions, renewals and advertisements. 

From the beginning of Woman s Home Missions, the editors con- 
stantly reminded their readers that the organ was for the Society and 
was an agency called into existence to serve the Society. In other maga- 
zines the profit went to the proprietor, but in the case of Woman s Home 
Missions it went to the Society. The success of the paper depended 
upon the loyal, faithful, voluntary efforts of the membership. 

In 1 887 one column of Woman s Home Missions was reserved for a 
circular letter for the Reading Circle. As the work increased, the annual 
report grew very large, so some portions were printed in the magazine, 
thus lessening the expense of the annual report. The Concert Study, 

[200] 



introduced in 1 890, helped subscriptions to the paper. In the same year 
two bi-monthly, four-page supplements to Woman s Home Missions were 
added. The first of these, devoted to deaconess work, was edited by 
Mrs. J. W. Bashford. The second, for children's work, was understood 
as leading toward a children's paper. All names of Mothers' Jewels 
were published in the children's supplement, besides bright picture stories. 
No advertisements appeared here unless especially pleasing to children. 

Paper and supplements were twenty-five cents a year, and Woman's 
Home Missions was not only increasing its subscription but also giving 
accurate knowledge of mission fields to its readers. One man, while 
working in Mexico, stumbled upon a copy of the paper. After reading 
it he said that nothing was more pointed or more correct than the article 
on New Mexico written by a bureau secretary. 

In 1 89 1 Woman's Home Missions came out with twenty pages and 
a colored cover, and costing thirty-five cents a year. This same year the 
publication of supplements was suspended and a column for deaconess 
work was edited by the Deaconess Bureau. A page of the paper was 
devoted to young people's work under the direction of the Young People's 
Bureau. In 1894 The Deaconess at Work, pubHshed for two years 
under the Lucy Webb Hayes Training School and Deaconess Home, 
was united with Woman s Home Missions, The reasons for this union 
were as follows: The addition of a department so important as the 
deaconess work would add to the interest and value of the paper. It 
would be impossible for a department even as large as the deaconess to 
support a periodical without sameness of method, or occupying the ground 
of church papers and the Society's organ. It was determined that 
Woman s Home Missions should include all the work as a unit under 
one cover. This necessitated the addition of four pages to the paper. 

In 1 900 the headquarters of the paper were changed from Delaware, 
Ohio, to New York City, where the publication of the paper was com- 
bined with that of the leaflets. The advertisements were placed under 
the care of advertising agents, who should choose such advertisements as 
were in harmony with the wishes of editor and publisher. Several pages 
were given over to deaconess work. A series of articles valuable to the 
Society as historical records appeared during 1898-1900, written by 
Mrs. T. L. Tomkinson. 

[201] 



The magazine changed once more to a white cover, since it would 
give added space for a picture or a pointed article of special interest. 
Furthermore, in binding the issues the outside, with the new type of cover, 
could be included. In January, 1917, the office of the two magazines, 
Womans' Home Missions and Children s Home Missions, was changed 
to Cincinnati, the headquarters of the Society. 

During its thirty-six years Woman's Home Missions has had three 
editors,— Mrs. H. C. McCabe. from 1884 to 1902; Miss Martha 
VanMarter, from 1 902 to 1917; and Mrs. Levi Gilbert, from 1917; 
for the greater part of this time Miss Mary Belle Evans was publisher. 
A history of the ways and means by which the paper was built up cannot 
portray its influence nor the literary merit and the personality of the intel- 
lectual and spiritually minded women who carried the responsibility of 
literary production and financial management, and tactfully levied upon 
busy secretaries and missionaries alike for facts concerning the mission 
field. The results, however, can be clearly chronicled in the growth of 
certain departments essential to the spiritual life of the Woman's Home 
Missionary Society. The Thank Offering, the Day of Humiliation and 
Prayer, and the tithing system of religious finance, have all been encour- 
aged and carried on by the paper as **something helpful to the church 
and vital to the prosperity of the country." 

*' Woman's Home Missions is a technical magazine. Its right to a 
place on your table is based on its claim that it is the organ of one of th«i 
greatest woman's societies in the country. It furnishes the direct means 
of communication between the fields of labor and the women of the 
auxiliaries, upon whose efforts all our financial resources depend." 

In 1 895 recommendations for a children's paper were made as fol- 
lows: It should be eight pages, size 6J/8 x 8 inches; it should be printed 
on supercalendared paper, 40 pounds to the ream; the name should be 
Children's Home Missions; the subscription should be fifteen cents, allow- 
ing, however, ten copies addressed to one person at ten cents each. 

The first issue was 1 ,000 copies. Miss VanMarter was made editor 
and Miss Mary Belle Evans, publisher. 

The reasons given for establishing a children's paper were that it 
vvould reach the mind and heart of the child during its most susceptible 

[2021 



years. This early impression would be most enduring. The paper also 
would be, as in the case of the adult paper, a valuable help in organizing. 
Mothers would be educated through their children. The material in 
Children s Home Missions would open avenues of activity to children. 
For twenty- four years the **little paper*' has been going into the homes 
of Home Guards and Mothers' Jewels, while in many instances local 
auxiliaries have paid for subscriptions thereto, and placed it in the primary 
and junior departments of the Sunday-school. The subscription list has 
grown to 26,464. This is a great achievement in the light of the fact 
that the list of individual subscribers to a children's paper is estimated to 
change completely every four years. 

General Publications — The leaflet literature has had a phe- 
nominal growth. In 1 883 ten leaflets were published. This was looked 
upon with great favor, since the workers thought that there was a wide 
field in Home Missions for such literature. The care of leaflets was 
left to Mrs. E. E. Marcy, and they were sent from her home in Evans- 
ton, 111., to the auxiharies. After Mrs. Marcy had given up the leaflet 
distribution it was transferred to New York and placed in charge of Miss 
VanMarter. In 1 890 direction was given to hold the type of articles 
published in Woman s Home Missions, which should have wider circula- 
tion, so that leaflets might be struck therefrom as the editor and chairman 
of the committee on publication might advise. 

All Conferences, Districts and local auxiliaries were earnestly re- 
quested to appoint a secretary of literature whose duty would be to dis- 
tribute leaflet supplies. Recommendations were made to the effect that 
no leaflet should be printed over the imprint of the Woman's Home Mis- 
sionary Society without being accepted by the leaflet editor. The secre- 
tary of each bureau was expected to furnish material for leaflets on her 
respective bureau work. 

In early days much of the material for leaflets was secured from 
the type sheets of Woman s Home Missions. Now and then one was 
written for a definite purpose. 

The present editor says that she was fortunate in entering the work 
with an inheritance of wise plans and helpful material. It must not be 
supposed, however, that three quarters of a million leaflets could be dis- 

[203] 



tributed over and over again without fresh, attractive material being added 
to the leaflet files. 

This work since 1906 has been done by the editor and business 
manager. Miss Alice M. Guernsey. More than a hundred and fifty 
leaflets, booklets and books listed in the latest catalog are from her 
scholarly pen. 

Anyone examining the back of mite-boxes will see why they take 
their place with leaflet literature. A regular system of lesson Helps 
for the inter-denominational study course provides monthly material for 
Auxiliary, Circle and Home Guard programs. The study plan is based 
on six lessons on six chapters of the inter-denominational textbook, and 
six on other themes connected with the work of the Society. The fortieth 
anniversary year sees the attainment of its goal of 4,000 regular sub- 
scribers (auxiliaries and circles) to the Senior Study Course. A Junior 
Study Course has also been established. 

In 1906, reporting for the committee on Home Mission Study 
Course, Miss Guernsey defined the work of the committee as lying 
between that of the Reading Circle on one hand and the Department 
of Publication on the other. It was desirable to keep the record and to 
know the number of text books ordered. In 1907 Inter-demominational 
conferences were held at Winona Lake and Silver Bay, and the cause 
of inter-denominational Home Mission study was greatly helped. At 
present an inter-denominational committee representing Woman's Home 
Missionary societies of eleven denominations secures the textbook each 
year for the inter-denominational Mission Study Course. 

In February, 1906, representatives of the Board of Trustees, the 
editor, and the office secretaries of the Department of Literature met 
officially, on call of the National Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. D. L. 
Williams. Among the results were the unifying of the work by establish- 
ing one central or publishing office and several branch offices, a uniform 
system of bookkeeping for all offices, and one official catalogue. 

Reading Circles — Energetic managers and publishers of literature 
were constantly reminding the constituency that a Society carrying 50,000 
uninformed members was not equipped for its best service. It was a 
mistake to ask for the giving of money by people who had no knowledge 

[204] 



of the work. Neither could a Society in any of its connections grow 
steadily unless its individual members could present the information and 
ideals with which the Society worked. People would be much like the 
small boy who was quoted as saying, '*It is rather difficult and pretty 
impossible to convey to others those ideas which you are not yourself 
possessed of.'* 

The logical step was to form Reading Circles, and there were begun 
in 1887, the object being to lay ''before our families of the Woman's 
Home Missionary Society in concise and brief form the condition of our 
country in a sense not confined to its missionary needs. There was to b^ 
one general Reading Circle, the only condition being the reading of one 
or more selected books. Woman s Home Missions was to contain a 
column for a circular letter from the secretary of the Reading Circle. 

The first set of readings were Woman's Home Missions, **Our 
Country," by Josiah Strong, and "A Century of Dishonor," by Helen 
Hunt Jackson. Those planning Reading Circles aimed to systematize 
the course of reading so that it should consist of a few books well chosen. 
The next group of books was: "Alaska," by Dr. Jackson; "Modern 
Cities," by Loomis; "An Appeal to Caesar," by Tourgee; "The Mor- 
mon Problem," by Ford; "The Deaconess," by Jane Bancroft; and 
"In Memoriam, Lucy Webb Hayes," by Mrs. John Davis. A motion 
was passed at the Annual Meeting of 1890 that these Reading Circle 
books, constituting the Woman's Home Missionary Society Library, be 
put in all the Deaconess Homes and in such other Homes and Training 
Schools as were able to profit by them. 

Annual Report — One might suppose that the "publications" of 
the Woman's Home Missionary Society had been included under the 
papers, books and leaflets. But there was still a very important one, — 
Annual Reports, — including the constitution of the Society, addresses on 
special topics made at the Annual Meetings, minutes of these meet- 
ings, etc. 

A "Twenty Years' History of the Woman's Home Missionary 
Society" was written by Mrs. T. L. Tomkinson in 1901. Other 
volumes on various lines of work have been issued during the years. A 
classified catalogue makes the publications easily available. 

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Supplies — For many people the only touch with missions is the 
recollection of the Missionary Barrel which their mothers helped pack 
years ago. If we are to believe the accounts of the facetious joker, 
more went into those Missionary Barrels than was ever listed in the books 
kept by the faithful superintendent of supplies. It is a far cry from the 
early days of supply work, when barrels of second-hand garments were 
sent to the frontier, to the present when only suitable garments in good 
condition will pass. It is a far cry, too, from those days when wool was 
wool and shoes wore and clothes were lasting, to the present time when 
the newness of a garment is no guarantee of its wearing quality. 

Like other departments, that of supplies originated in a natural, laud- 
able attempt to meet the difficulties of supporting industrial work in the 
South. In 1 882 a committee reported that the missionaries needed mate- 
rial to carry on their industrial schools, such as patches and cloth for 
sewing classes, needles, thread, etc. There was need also of supplies for 
the destitute. The women of the Society were asked to collect garments 
for the needy, and to cut and prepare simple garments for making which 
could be used to teach sewing. Each, auxiliary was to prepare the box, 
pay the freight, and send a list of the contents and estimated value to the 
committee having direction of supply work. 

In 1883 the Department of Supplies was organized. Auxiliaries 
were to inform the superintendent of supplies of their intention to send a 
box. A list of articles in the box was filled out, and this, together with 
freight or express receipt was mailed to the superintendent, who kept 
record thereof. In 1 892 Conferences were requested to elect Conference 
and auxiliary secretaries of supplies. The secretary was to write to the 
general secretary of supplies for directions as to where to send barrels, 
was to receive necessary measurements for garments needed, and to 
endeavor to secure reduced transportation rates. No credit was given 
for supplies sent out without the approval of the secretary of supplies in 
the auxiliary where the box or barrel was packed. The local secretary 
of suppHes was to fill out the pastor's vouchers with the aggregate sum 
of money thus used for Home Missions and the value of the supplies 
donated. This was to be signed by the local treasurer and given to the 
pastor to present to his Conference statistical secretary. 

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These first barrels were sent South to reheve conditions there, but 
very soon requests for the donation box came from the West for ministers 
on the frontier. The women were amazed at the want in the parsonage 
revealed in the winter of 1 884. The churches were new, people were 
in straitened circumstances, the missionary appropriations of the Mission- 
ary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church were necessarily small. 
Thirty-five churches at once responded to the need of ministers' families 
on the frontier. At first boxes and barrels were sent to the presiding 
elders, who distributed them to the ministers under their care, but this 
did not prove to be an economical arrangement, since it necessitated 
repacking and reshipping. The method of having them sent directly to 
the minister was established. 

The Supply Department had a growing business on its hands. Not 
only did it have the furnishing of materials for the schools and barrels 
for the ministers, it also was called upon to provide furnishings for the 
Society's Industrial Homes. Interest in the department waxed strong. 
Enthusiasm ran high. New auxiliaries were organized. Queen Esther 
Circles cut out garments for the Southern girls to sew, and packed Christ- 
mas boxes for the little orphans at Mother's Jewels Home and elsewhere. 
Once in a while a barrel meant for the Indians v/ould reach a parsonage, 
or one packed for the North would arrive at a Southern plantation. But 
such mistakes were rectified and were very few compared with the num- 
bers sent out by the zealous workers. 

Through Chaplain McCabe all cases of need coming to the Mission- 
ary Society in New York City were turned over to the Bureau of 
Supplies of the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the New York 
Conference. The boxes sent to the frontier contained clothing for the 
family, theological books in the prescribed Conference course of study 
for the young minister. Bibles, hymnals, organs and libraries for help in 
services. Heavy fur coats for the minister to wear when traveling his 
circuit with the thermometer thirty degrees below zero were also included. 

Very soon new garments had the right of way. In 1 905 a circular 
letter was sent to the Conferences urging a low valuation on second-hand 
garments. In fact, it was thought wise to put no value on them at all. 
Later it was resolved that owing to the difficulty of securing a uniform 
scale of valuation on second-hand articles donated, all secretaries should 

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be instructed that beginning with the year 1905-06, second-hand articles 
should be reported by number instead of by estimated cash value. In 
1906 the Department of Supplies ministered to one thousand families. 
Twenty-five fur coats went to ministers. Twenty rag carpets were sent 
to as many parsonages, and numberless Christmas boxes were packed for 
individual Homes and orphanages. Second-hand garments to the number 
of 87,240 were also supplied. 

A harder winter followed. Fuel and foodstuffs were high ; salaries 
would hardly buy the groceries. The Woman's Home Missionary 
Society said: **We will not fail them." So great faith did these frontier 
families have in the Missionary Barrel that they cheerfully accepted hard 
places if they were assured that a Woman's Home Missionary Society 
barrel would be sent for the parsonage family there. 

In 1913 the president of the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
recommended the formation of a Sustentation Bureau, for the purpose of 
supplementing the salary of Methodist Episcopal ministers throughout the 
church wherever a man received $500 or less a year. After an extensive 
correspondence, the secretary of this new Bureau revealed some astonish- 
ing facts: * 'Fifty-one replies gave the following results: 1,400 ministers 
received less than $500, six hundred had parsonages, eight hundred were 
without parsonages. If this ratio should continue throughout the Con- 
ferences yet to be heard from, at least 3,000 servants of the Most High 
would be found trying to build the Kingdom of Christ in this highly 
favored land at this time of the high cost of living on a support wholly 
inadequate to meet their daily needs, a condition so startling as to drive 
Methodism to its knees." 

Sustentation Conferences were those conferences which retained 
twenty-five cents from membership dues to be expended by the Conference 
Society for its own needy ministers. By 1917 thirteen conference socie- 
ties were caring for their own needy preachers. A question arose as to 
whether the church should not soon be able to care for its own pastors. 
The time did not look propitious since "perplexing questions relative to 
work in the South were unanswered and since new territory was being 
opened up in the great Northwest." 

In 1 9 1 4 the plan of retaining one-half of the dues was abolished. All 

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Conferences desiring to become Sustentation Conferences were directed 
to make application through the Bureau secretary to the Board of Trus- 
tees. In 1915 the bureau of sustentation was merged with the Depart- 
ment of Supplies. That year Sustentation Conferences paid for needy 
ministers $6,625.50. 

During the years of the World War normal conditions were gone. 
The sources of supplies were in Homes where the stress of war had 
entered. The distribution of supplies was handicapped by Government 
problems of transportation. But the calls were urgent. The Society 
must needs support the orphanages where were the children bereft of 
fathers by the war. Ministers never were so needy. Supplies for Indus- 
trial Homes and hospitals were essential. The latest cash report was 
$ 1 2 1 ,64 1.12, besides fur coats for the men of the Northwest, linens for 
the emergency hospital at Washington, D. C, provision for the deaconess 
at work, clothing for the sick, and assistance for eight hundred and 
seventy-eight ministers. 

Surely helpfulness is the keynote of the Department of Supplies. 



[209 



In Revi 



eview 



XIV 

IN REVIEW 

V •3P •5P 

**He that putteth his hand to the plow, 
looking back, is not worthy of the Kingdom." 

THE United States Government has a class of men in its fighting 
corps who are picked men. They are selected for splendid physique 
and unerring eyesight. They are well-poised, crack shots and trained to 
fight anywhere, at any time, on land or sea. These men are known to 
the world as the United States Marines. 

The Home Missionaries are the Society's marines. They are the 
best workers that careful selection and specialized training can produce. 
They are ready to go anywhere and do anything on the great Home 
Mission field that their leaders may request. During forty years, they 
have cleaned up bad spots in Christian America as thoroughly as the 
Marines wiped out the machine-gun nests in France. They 
have been as tender and skillful in their ministrations as the Red Cross 
nurse. They have been the faithful army on the firing line, where it was 
hard and dangerous and where privations and sufferings were a necessary 
part of the work. Many times their appointments were far out on the 
prairies, where the red Indian roamed, still battling against the civilization 
that claimed him. They were sent to the far Northland, where separation 
from home and loved ones was as complete as anywhere on the globe. 
Far to the South the hot, dry winds of desert towns would sap the 
strength of the missionaries as they struggled for a hearing in the Mexican 
quarters of the refugees from over the border. In city streets as foreign 
as any street in Canton they walked with courage derived from prayer 
and faith in God. With surpassing patience ^hey wrestled with the per- 
plexities of foreign-speaking strangers. In crowded slums they ministered 
to the sick and dying. There is no part of our land where these Home 
Mission **Marines" are not known. 

[213] 



Much of their success turned on their intuitive knowledge and keen 
perception. They not only expounded the Scriptures, but also showed 
varied abihty in digging wells, laying foundation walls, curing whales; 
they could explain methods of irrigation, lead in prayer or teach a kinder- 
garten. They performed with equal dignity and high degree of excellence 
the duties of squatter, homesteader, farmer, detective, navigator, nurse, 
hnancier, housekeeper, amanuensis, teacher, preacher and linguist. They 
were brave almost to foolhardiness. 

Again and again they have returned to the work. Their labors have 
been appreciated by the great army at home. At each morning watch 
some women prayed for the missionaries. At the noontide hour they 
lifted again their petitions to the Heavenly Father for the work done at 
so great a cost. Auxiliaries and Conference societies have levied on work 
basket, linen closet, pantry shelves, storage rooms and pocketbooks of 
their respective communities for gifts for the missionaries and their work. 
Forty years of such history could never have been written if the entire 
constituency had not caught the gleam of Kipling's lines : 

'*It ain't the individuals. 

Nor the army as a whole, 
But the everlastin' team work 
Of every bloomin' soul." 

When missionaries finally bade farewell to the field where they toiled 
and builded so well, the Society returned with memorials to their faithful 
service. 

The Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church has had great leadership. The early group of leaders demon- 
strated their peculiar abiHties in the perfection of organization which they 
developed side by side with experimental work in the South. The last 
decade of history has produced another group of leaders who have done 
an equally brilliant thing in leading the deaconess movement to a climax 
of city mission work, with its network of Deaconess Homes and settle- 
ments over the entire country, with its scholarly and influential training 
schools, and its marvelous hospitals. The greatest tribute to these leaders 
is the recital of their philanthropies: **By their deeds ye shall know 
them." That the first president of the Woman's Home Missionary 

[214] 



Society should be Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of the president of the 
United States, gave the Society distinction. That its first Corresponding 
Secretary should be the gifted Elizabeth Rust gave the Society a hearing 
among the leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church. That among the 
pioneers of its missionary work should be the dean of a woman's college 
and a professor of English literature gave the support of the educated 
women of the country. That through all the years women of means and 
social influence have rallied to the standards of the Society has given it 
power. That women of special ability and rare Christian character have 
devoted themselves to the fulfillment of its great and difficult tasks has 
given it success. 

On June 8, 1920, the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church will celebrate its fortieth birthday. The 
members of the Society have been zealous in providing a suitable anni- 
versary gift as a crowning effort to forty years of ardent work and 
brilliant achievement upon the Home Missions Field. Statistically, this 
gift stands as 40,000 new members, 40,000 new subscriptions to the 
organ of the Society, Woman s Home Missions, and $80,000. In 
reality, this combined force of personality, propaganda and money will 
be used to provide for loving care of deaconesses and missionaries when 
they have become "sunset members," and to enlarge and develop two of 
the national training Schools of the Society, — the McCrum National 
Training School for Slavonic Young Women at Uniontown, Pennsyl- 
vania, and the San Francisco National Training School. 

Not only have the women realized the need of trained workers as 
crucially important; they have also recognized the strategic hour for 
reconstruction of work already grown to large proportions, involving 
tremendous responsibility and offering the greatest opportunity for Chris- 
tian service that has yet been given to women of America. Committees 
of survey were appointed who were to visit the institutions of the Society, 
with power to make investigations on the field and to recommend im- 
provements that would lead to the betterment of equipment and educa- 
tional facilities. As a result of these surveys the following reconstruction 
measures are being carried out: 

A new Church and Mission House for the Indians at Yuma, 
Arizona; changes and repairs at the New Jersey Conference Home, 

[215] 



Morrislown, Tennessee; a new domestic science room at Rebecca 
McCleskey Home, Boaz, Alabama; equipment for a domestic science 
room and living rooms at Haven Home; a building at Asheville, North 
Carolina, used for the younger girls from Allen Industrial Home; new 
equipment at Browning Home, Camden, South Carolina; the establish- 
ment of an advanced Seminary and training school for Negro girls and 
w^omen ; the building of a Negro Orphanage ; a new building for Brewster 
Hospital at Jacksonville, Florida; additional buildings for Mothers' 
Jewels Home, York, Nebraska, and Peck Orphanage, Polo, Illinois. 
The surveys have included the institutions for Negroes and the Southern 
white work; the Spanish Bureau of the Southwest; the missions to the 
Indians and the varied lines of work on the Pacific Coast; the Slavonic 
Training School and the work among the Slavs. A survey of Alaskan 
work is contemplated. 

This reconstruction work, together with the special development 
of the National training schools, is now engaging the attention of the 
best equipped corps of workers the Woman's Home Missionary Society 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church could put upon its field. 

To further strengthen the educational phase of their mission work, 
an educational secretary has been appointed whose duty is to visit all the 
schools of the Society and to make such recommendations to the Trustees 
and Bureau Secretaries as may be needed to increase the efficiency of 
teachers and schoolroom methods, and to see that these schools conform 
to the State requirements of education. 

TTie surveys have included the institutions for Negroes and the 
Southern White Work, the Spanish Bureau of the Southwest, the 
missions to the Indians and the varied lines of work on the Pacific coast, 
the Slavonic Training School and the work among the Slavs. 

A survey of Alaskan work is contemplated. 



[216] 



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